Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer
mission of the European Space Agency to explore Jupiter’s moons From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is a space probe made by the European Space Agency that will explore Jupiter's major moons, mostly just Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. It is powered by solar panels, like NASA's Juno spacecraft.[3]
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The spacecraft launched on 14 April 2023. It will reach Jupiter's orbit in July 2031 after four gravity assists and eight years of travel.[4]
It will fly near the moons before going into orbit around Ganymede.[5]
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Instruments onboard JUICE[6]
JANUS- An optical camera system
MAJIS- Moon and Jupiter imaging Spectrometer
GALA- Ganymede laser Altimeter
J-Mag- A magnetometer for JUICE
RPWI- Radio & Plasma Wave Investigation
UVS- UV imaging Spectrograph
SWI- Sub-millimeter Wave Instrument
RIME- Radar for Icy Moons Exploration
PEP- Particle Environment Package
3GM- Gravity & Geophysics of Jupiter and Galilean Moons
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History
Juice builds on the previously proposed Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM-Laplace), a planned collaborative mission between ESA and NASA that would have carried out an in-depth study of the Jovian system and its icy moons. It is now foreseen that the Juice and NASA Europa Clipper spacecraft will be exploring the Jovian system simultaneously.[6]
Milestones JUICE will achieve
- It will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer solar system(Ganymede)
- Juice’s flyby of the Earth-Moon system, known as a Lunar-Earth gravity assist (LEGA), is a world first: by performing this maneuver — a gravity assist flyby of the Moon followed just 1.5 days later by one of Earth—Juice will be able to save a significant amount of fuel.[6]
Spacecraft structure
Three-axis stabilized with 10 solar panels and a 2.5-metre-long High Gain Antenna, with a dry mass of approximately 2400 kg and a wet mass (including fuel) of approximately 6000 kg. Each solar panel measures about 2.5 m x 3.5 m; with five on each side of the spacecraft deployed as two distinctive cross-shaped arrays, these total an area of about 85 square meters.
Journey
Juice will spend approximately eight years cruising to Jupiter, during which it will complete fly-bys of Venus, Earth and the Earth-Moon system. It will reach Jupiter in July 2031; six months before entering orbit around Jupiter, Juice will begin its nominal science phase. The spacecraft will go on to spend many months orbiting Jupiter, completing fly-bys of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and finally conducting an orbital tour of Ganymede.[6]
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Details
References
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