The launch of the European Space Agency’s mission to find life on Jupiter’s moons has been postponed due to a lightning risk.
The next launch window is at 1.14pm tomorrow. Today’s lift-off from French Guiana was scheduled for 1.15pm.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer spacecraft, or JUICE for short, will take seven and a half years to travel to three of the gas giant’s moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The spacecraft is set to launch from the ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, hitching a ride into space on board an Ariane 5 rocket.
‘We are going to halt the launch operations for now, for today due to weather conditions,’ a spokesperson said on its livestream of the launch.
‘We do not take any risks when it comes to launching a satellite into space.’
Using a magnetometer designed by a British team, the mission aims to analyse the liquid oceans hidden beneath the moons’ icy exteriors – found by Nasa’s Galileo spacecraft in 1995.
‘We’re almost certain that at least three of the moons have good liquid water oceans underneath the surface,’ said Professor Michelle Dougherty, principal investigator for the magnetometer aboard JUICE. ‘
‘If we are looking for places in our solar system, where life can form, the first ingredient you’re looking for is liquid water.
‘Three ingredients – liquid water, heat and organic material – are first needed, we think, for life to form. If those are stable enough over a long enough period of time, then potentially something might be able to happen.’
MORE : Scientists set to study the icy oceans of Jupiter’s moons for signs of life
