The European Space Agency (ESA)’s “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer” — or JUICE, for short — successfully launched this afternoon following yesterday’s postponement in the face of poor weather conditions. The pioneering mission took to the air on board an Ariane 5 rocket at just after 1.14pm BST, blasting off from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, South America. Following an eight-year cruise, the craft will study Jupiter and three of its icy moons, which tantalise with the prospect of harbouring alien life in their subsurface oceans.
JUICE will also enter the record books in December 2034, when it is scheduled to become the first spacecraft to enter into orbit around a moon other than Earth’s — specifically, Ganymede, where the probe will conclude its 11-year mission.
Various other worlds in our Solar System have been proposed to be potentially capable — or once capable — of harbouring extra-terrestrial life.
These include, in the past, Mercury and Mars, which are believed to have once played host to water ice and liquid water — and, in the present, the dwarf planet of Ceres that lies in the asteroid belt between the Red Planet and Jupiter, and has a thin water-vapour atmosphere.
Among the most promising candidates, however, are the large icy moons of Jupiter, three of which — Callisto, Europa and Ganymede — are believed may well have vast, miles-deep subsurface oceans capable of supporting life.
In fact, in 2012, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope detected what experts believed may be plumes of water erupting from Europa’s buried ocean.
The JUICE spacecraft has been equipped with 10 different scientific instruments to study both the atmosphere, magnetic environment, ring system and satellites of Jupiter; as well as the moons of Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, characterising their oceans, icy shells, surfaces and activity.
Data collected should help scientists better understand how gas giants form, how Jupiter’s complex environment has shaped its moons and vice versa, the nature of the subsurface oceans on the Jovian moons and whether such now or once supported life.
The craft even includes an ice-penetrating radar system that will allow scientists to map out the subsurface oceans.
The findings from this undertaking could well help scientists plan a potential future mission deploying a submersible craft into these waters.
READ MORE: Life on Jupiter’s moons: ESA’s Juice craft to probe mysterious oceans
In a press release, an ESA spokesperson said: “JUICE, is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System.
“It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons — Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
“This ambitious mission will characterise these moons 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.”
The craft, they added, “has an eight-year cruise, with flybys of Earth and Venus, to slingshot it to Jupiter. It will make 35 flybys of the three large moons while orbiting Jupiter, before changing orbits to Ganymede.”
On the mission and its potential to find alien life, British astronaut Tim Peake commented: “This is such an exciting mission, with the power to inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers. What could be more inspirational than the search for extra-terrestrial life?
“Personally, I’m convinced that there is life out there, somewhere. We have already identified 50 billion stars likely to have planets with a habitable zone in this galaxy alone. If you consider that there could be as many as 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, the chance of Earth being the only planet supporting life is extremely slim in my view.
“The JUICE launch is an important step in trying to unlock the hidden mysteries of the universe.”
How to watch the flight
The ESA is continuing to provide livestreamed coverage of the JUICE mission’s flight this afternoon, April 14, 2023.
The stream can be watched either directly on ESA Web TV, or via the ESA’s YouTube channel.
The JUICE craft will separate from the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket at around 1.42pm BST.
It is expected that it will take around 10 minutes at least from ground control to acquire the first signal from JUICE.
Following the launch, two monitoring cameras on board the craft will capture images of the solar array being unfurled, an undertaking that is expected to be completed by around 2.55pm BST.
A few days into the mission, the same cameras will photograph the deployment of the 52 feet-long radar antenna — which will probe the icy surfaces of Jupiter’s moons down to a depth of 5.6 miles — along with its other antennas and instrument booms.
Following this, an intensive three-month-long commissioning process will prepare and check JUICE’s scientific instruments to ensure all is ready for arrival at Jupiter.
The mission will be making use of four gravity-assist flybys in the inner Solar System to help slingshot it to the Jovian system.
The first of these, a so-called lunar–Earth gravity-assist, will see JUICE flyby the Moon and then, 1.5 days later, the Earth, in the August of next year.
