JUICEfirst European space mission With destiny on jupiter, has already flown to the fifth planet of the solar system. He has eight more years of travel ahead of him, during which he will make three flybys of the Earth, one of Venus and another of an asteroid called 223 Rosa, located in the main asteroid belt.
After that, he will be completely immersed in jupiterian system, consisting of Jupiter and its satellites. He is scrutinizing what many consider to be a miniature solar system and will attempt to confirm the existence of large reservoirs of liquid water.
Missions to Jupiter are not the first time. NASA has already done this with its Juno probe, which is still exploring the planet’s vicinity. But JUICE will not only be the first European mission, but also pioneer in some aspects that make it a special ship.
JUICE flew to Jupiter without any problems
As planned, the rocket Arian W. The loaded spacecraft was launched at 12:15 UTC (2:15 pm Spanish Peninsular Time) from a European spaceport located in French Guiana. Later, at 12:45 UTC (14:45 Spanish Peninsular Time), it separated from JUICE, which thus began its journey to Jupiter. There were no incidents during this early stage of the Jovian journey.
Now what?
Although it will make several secondary flybys during its journey, JUICE’s primary mission revolves around Jupiter and its moons. We can say that it has two main goals.
On the one hand, look for habitable zones. Although Callisto, Ganymede and Europa, the best-studied moons of Jupiter, are icy moons, with evidence that there may be liquid beneath their surface. In fact, there is a suspicion that Callisto can have everything. ocean. It hasn’t been researched yet, but there is hope that JUICE can find it if it exists.
On the other hand, the spacecraft will be able to carefully analyze Jupiter. This planet and its satellites constitute a kind of small solar system. Jupiter actually has its own rapidly rotating magnetic field, but the difficulty of traveling there makes it hard to solve the mystery. This will be another strength of JUICE.
Break records
JUICE will be the first European mission to Jupiter. Although this is not his only entry. Planned flight outside of Europe 2 times, Ganymede 12 times and Callisto 21 times. But it will fly not only over these moons. It is expected to orbit Ganymede, so if all goes well, it will become the first spacecraft to orbit a satellite other than ours.
All this makes JUICE a mission that is sure to bring us many important news in the next decade. At the moment, this is already given the go-ahead. Now we should be aware of his trip.
Source: Hiper Textual
