On Thursday, ESA will head to Jupiter and its moons if all goes well. The Juice mission’s rocket is scheduled to lift off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 2:15 p.m. Central European Summer Time. Ariane 5 carries the unmanned spacecraft Juice.
This stands for “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer”, reflecting that the ESA (European Space Agency) is particularly interested in three moons of Jupiter: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. She wants to find out whether the conditions on the moons are actually conducive to life. This refers to subsurface oceans that have been discovered in the past several decades. Europa in particular is a good candidate, since the moon is closer to Jupiter and therefore not quite as cold. The daily maximum temperature at the equator could approach -140 degrees Celsius.
Juice will not be able to radio back concrete evidence of life in the oceans. It is intended to investigate whether the basis for life as we can imagine it scientifically is given.
generation project
An Ariane 5 is in service for ESA for the last time.
(Image: ESA)
Work on the Juice mission has been going on for over a decade. The journey itself will take another eight years simply because Jupiter is many rill lengths away. Juice gains momentum by orbiting the earth-moon system, Venus and twice the earth. The mission is scheduled to end in 2035, when Juice is scheduled to crash on Ganymede.
The spacecraft has 85 square meter solar panels and ten scientific instruments. Among other things, they will examine Jupiter’s magnetic fields, radiation levels and plasma, and how these interact with the moons.
The Institute for Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is contributing a laser altimeter to measure the surface of Ganymede. The moons deform as they orbit Jupiter—the height of this tidal deformation is said to reveal whether liquid water is sloshing beneath Ganymede’s ice. DLR was also involved in the Janus camera.
(Image: NASA)
The rocket launch is the penultimate scheduled flight of an Ariane 5 and the last ESA flight with this rocket generation; the maiden flight of Ariane 6 will hopefully succeed before the end of this year. The Ariane 5 is decorated with art created by children. Prime contractor for the Juice mission is Airbus Defense & Space.
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