Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer Mission: Pre-launch | European Space Agency

Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer Mission: Pre-launch | European Space Agency

The Ariane 5 VA 260 rocket with the European Space Agency's JUICE spacecraft is ready for launch on the ELA-3 launch pad at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana in South America.

JUICE—JUpiter ICy moons Explorer—is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterize Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. JUICE will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.

Following launch, JUICE will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth.

Flight VA260 will be the final European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 5 flight to carry a ESA  mission to space.

Follow the JUICE Mission: www.esa.int/juice

Credit: ESA- S. Corvaja

Image Dates: April 11-12, 2023

 

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