With the Juice probe, space Europa embarks towards Jupiter

Guyana’s space center is in crisis. An Ariane 5 rocket will take off this Thursday at 2:15 p.m. Paris time (9:15 a.m. in Guyana). It carries the Juice probe (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) whose mission is to approach Jupiter’s icy moons (Europa and Ganymede) to see if they are potentially habitable. After liftoff, Ariane 5 will carry Juice for 28 minutes before ejecting him.

This mission is a pure exploration mission with the European Space Agency in the prime contractor role and Airbus in the industrial role. It has been 8 years since the Airbus Defense and Space teams won the contract. This mission, with the launch, has a total budget of 1,500 million euros.

energy sobriety

Juice carries 3.5 tons of propellant for the propulsion stages. But for your power supply, you will depend on your solar panels. A technological feat because the 1,900 cells that make them up have been inserted one by one, by hand.

This efficiency has a cost: 50 million euros. Once the panels are deployed, Juice’s wingspan will reach about a hundred feet. Power consumption has been optimized to the maximum. Despite its battery of instruments, the probe will consume only 800 watts. A feat.

Oceans lurking under the ice

Juice is a technological gem. The probe is full of high-flying instruments: interferometer, spectrometer, laser altimeter… Germany, France, Spain, Japan, the collaborators are numerous. All these tools will make it possible, in particular, to analyze the saltwater oceans of two of Jupiter’s moons: Europa and Ganymede.

Because yes, some Jupiter moons contain more water than Earth’s reserves. Oceans carpeted under ten kilometers of ice. Are they conducive to the development of extraterrestrial life? This is the heart of the mission.

space hell

A journey during which the probe will be battered by radiation, radiation. To protect it, sheets of lead have been applied to certain sensitive areas. The probe will also have to withstand the intense cold of space. There is a solution for this – MLI (multi-layer insulation). The famous gold or silver “survival blanket”, which often protects satellites.

A high-tech product. “One of the most expensive materials,” explained Cyril Cavel.

This pure mission of exploration, of course for the beauty of science and knowledge, will also be a mission that should contribute to bring its share of technological and economic development into our future daily life, in many areas: solar panels, thermal insulation, energy. savings, artificial intelligence, measurement of magnetic fields.

After twelve years of good and loyal service, around 2034, flayed and exhausted by radiation, Juice willfully crash into Ganymede, one of his playgrounds, to avoid any accidental contamination from another environment.