Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer

July 29, 2024

European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is gearing up for a pivotal maneuver in its mission to the gas giant and it is scheduled to fly past Earth on August 20, 2024.

About Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer:

It is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to explore Jupiterand three of its icy moons: Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.
Objective: The probe aims to explore the possibilities of life in space and the origins of Jupiter.
It will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation, and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons.
Approximately four years after its arrival at the Jupiter system, JUICE will move into orbit around the gas giant's largest moon, Ganymede, to conduct the most extensive exploration of this body, which is larger than the solar system's smallest planet, Mercury.
It will become the first probe to orbit a planetary moon other than Earth's.
Features
- It has been fuelled with mono-methyl hydrazine (MMH) fuel and mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON) oxidizer, which ignites when the two come in contact. Juice will use this propellant to make critical course manoeuvres on its journey.
- It will be packed with 10 instruments and will characterize Jupiter’s ocean-bearing icy moons.
- It will be launched onboard the Ariane-5 rocket, a workhorse for the European Space Agency.