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| JUICE at Ganymede. Credit: ESA |
Launch Date: April 14, 2023Launch Site: ELA-3, Kourou, French GuianaLaunch Vehicle: Ariane 5Mission Type: OrbiterTargets: Jupiter, Europa, Ganymede, and CallistoDimensions: 4.09 Meters, by 2.86 Meters, by 4.35 Meters. (Not including solar panels)Mass: 2420 KilogramsYou can build your own JUICE spacecraft out of LEGO here.
The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) will explore three of Jupiter's four Galilean satellites in the 2030s. The last ESA mission launched by the now retired Ariane 5 rocket, JUICE is a revolutionary spacecraft intended to explore Jupiter's icy moons (not Io though, sorry Io fans).
The Mission
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| Ariane 5 with JUICE aboard before launch. Credit: ESA |
After its launch in April this year, JUICE suffered an antenna anomaly. The RIME antenna failed to unfold on April 17, three days after launch. At first this was thought to be due to ice buildup, so the team oriented the portion of the spacecraft that contained the antenna to the Sun. This would warm it up, and melt the ice. This was a risky procedure however, because that portion of the spacecraft was never meant to face the sun. The antenna survived the exposure, but didn't unlatch, meaning something else was keeping it in place.
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| JUICE's science instruments infographic. Credit: ESA |
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| How JUICE operates in an extreme environment infographic. Credit: ESA |
The RIME antenna team decided to try "shaking" the spacecraft gently back and forth using its maneuvering thrusters, to see of it would unlock a possible stuck pin. This didn't work either. Then the company that manufactured the antenna, SpaceTech, came up with a solution. They had recreated the anomaly in a test, and found that deploying the other instruments as planned, dislodged RIME. All was not well however, because the RIME team had to be cautious about other instruments and antennas getting stuck on the RIME antenna, leading to even more problems. After much discussion, the team went ahead and deployed one of the other antennas, after reordering the deployment sequence. It worked! The RIME antenna is now deployed, and JUICE is safely on its journey.
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| RIME antenna deploys. Credit: ESA |
JUICE will now take eight years to get to Jupiter, after several gravity assists and flybys. JUICE will make a never before seen dual flyby of both the Earth and the Moon on August 19-20, 2024. On August 31, 2025, JUICE will make a gravitational assist of Venus. JUICE will do two more gravity assists of Earth on September 28, 2026, and January 17, 2029. After the last Earth flyby, its possible that JUICE will fly past one or two asteroids in the asteroid belt on its way to Jupiter, like the Galileo spacecraft did.
In January of 2031, JUICE wil finally arrive at the Jupiter system. Over the next few years, JUICE will make 2 flybys of Europa, 21 of Callisto, and 12 at Ganymede. During one of the Europa flybys, NASA's
Europa Clipper will fly in only 4 hours after JUICE. After all of these flybys, JUICE will settle itself into an orbit around Ganymede. This will be the first time a spacecraft will orbit around a major moon in the outer solar system.
JUICE will slowly shrink its orbit down, and closely map the surface of Ganymede, as well as mapping its magnetic field, and possible subsurface oceans. Then JUICE will crash into Ganymede, to avoid contaminating Europa, which could have life underneath the surface. Before JUICE's end however, it could be used to watch Europa Clipper's end. Europa Clipper might crash into Ganymede once its mission is over, and JUICE would then observe the crater created from the impact.
The Targets
- Date Discovered: 1610
- Radius: 1590.8 Kilometres
- Mass: 4.7998x10^22 Kilograms
- Density: 3.013 g/cm^3
- Rotational Period: 3.55 Days
- Orbital Period: 3.55 Days
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| Enhanced colour image of Ganymede from Galileo. Credit: NASA/JPL/DLR |
- Date Discovered: 1610
- Radius: 2631.2 Kilometres
- Mass: 1.4819x10^23 Kilograms
- Density: 1.942 g/cm^3
- Rotational Period: 7.16 Days
- Orbital Period: 7.16 Days
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| Voyager image of Callisto. Credit: NASA/JPL |
- Date Discovered: 1610
- Radius: 1590.8 Kilometres
- Mass: 1.0759x10^23 Kilograms
- Density: 1.834 g/cm^3
- Rotational Period: 16.69 Days
- Orbital Period: 16.69 Days
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