by Europa’s mission to explore three icy moons of Jupiter is ready to begin its journey to the outer solar system.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer spacecraft, also known as JUICE, will study Europa, Ganymede and Callisto to provide insights into their nature, evolution, possible subsurface oceans and potential to harbor life. JUICE has undergone final testing at the Airbus facility in Toulouse, France, and will soon begin its journey to ESAs Guyana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana on South America’s Atlantic coast. From there, the 13,670-pound (6,200-kilogram) spacecraft will launch on one of the last two Ariane 5 rockets.
“The launch is currently targeted for April 14,” European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher said on Tuesday (January 24) during a press conference held in Paris.
Related: NASA spacecraft captures gorgeous new image of Jupiter’s moons Io and Europa
JUICE is scheduled to reach Jupiter in 2031 and will then make a series of flybys of the icy Galilean moons Europe, Ganymede and Callisto. It will finally orbit Ganymede in 2034 to begin a more detailed, nine-month study of the moon, which will also be the first time a spacecraft has orbited a moon other than our own.
JUICE will use its pack of 10 cutting edge scientific payloads to advance our understanding of the moons. A main focus will be the internal ocean below the surface beneath the moon’s crust, which JUICE will target by studying the moon’s magnetic field and looking at their tidal interactions with other worlds in the Jupiter system.
“We’re not monitoring fish or big fish or creatures in these lakes, but we’re looking at how these moons are composed and whether or not they might be habitable,” Aschbacher said. “This will be extremely important information that could possibly lead to other future missions to the icy moons, which are extremely interesting from a scientific point of view.”
JUICE has huge solar panels with a total area of 915 square feet (85 square meters) to power the spacecraft, which will orbit Jupiter at an average distance of 778 million kilometers sun.
The mission will end when JUICE runs out of the fuel needed to maintain its orbit and hits the surface of Ganymede.
JUICE was selected by ESA in 2012 and prime contractor Airbus worked with more than 80 companies across Europe to get the spacecraft ready.
In the meantime, NASA is working to prepare it Europa Clipper mission for launch in 2024. Europa is perhaps the most exciting of the three JUICE moons for astrobiologists, and while the ESA mission will fly by Europa only twice, Clipper will perform dozens of flybys starting around 2030.
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