If you’re a space geek — and I assume most of us here at Jalopnik are — it’s a pretty exciting time right now. We had most ambitious space telescope of all time in service, NASA is testing a Mars rover And The European Space Agency is launching all the way exciting exploration to distant planets. Its latest mission is the Juice probe, and it successfully launched into space this morning.
In case you lost it:
Quest Juice, whose full name is not very interesting is Jupiter’s Ice Moon Exploreris being sent on a mission to study the largest planet in our solar system and the moons around it.
Currently, Space.com reports that The ship began its eight-year mission after launching from French Guiana this morning. From the website:
The European Space Agency (ESA) Juice spacecraft launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Friday (April 14) at 8:14 morning EDT (1214 GMT), after a one-day delay due to the threat of lightning at the launch site. The spacecraft separation occurred about 28 minutes after takeoff.
“The launch kicks off an ambitious mission to study Jupiter and three of its largest, most intriguing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, all of which are thought to contain oceans of liquid water. large beneath their icy shells.”
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In order to reach Jupiter and its icy moons, the craft will take a long, but more fuel efficient, route to get there. First, it will slingshot around the Earth and our moon in August 2024 to uses gravity to aid its flight through the solar system.
In 2025, the spacecraft will perform a similar slingshot maneuver around Venus before orbiting Earth twice more in 2026 and 2029, if all goes according to plan. These planetary encounters will give craft enough incentive to power directly to Jupiter, where it will arrive in September 2031.
As it begins to approach Jupiter, the Juice probe’s science instruments will kick in and begin studying the gas giant. Sensors on board include an optical camera system, a spectrometer, a radar acoustic meter, a laser altimeter, a magnetometer and a particle analyzer, all of which will provide scientists at home an unparalleled view of the planet.
But when the probe begins its mission, the European Space Agency already knew how it would face collapse. In total, it carried enough fuel to complete more than 30 flybys of Jupiter and its moons.
During the final pass on the surface of the moon Ganymede, its fuel will run out. The probe’s orbit around the moon would then decay, until it finally crashed into Ganymede’s icy surface. What a way to go.
