The European Space Agency's (ESA) JUICE €1.6B ($1.77B) mission is underway to explore Jupiter, the largest planet orbiting the sun, and three of its icy moons.
The mission will take eight years, including flybys of Venus and Earth, ending in late 2035 with a crash landing on Ganymede's surface.
JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) will receive gravity assistance from Venus and Earth to reach Jupiter in 2031.
- Ultraviolet sunlight (UVS) reflected by the moons can reveal details about their surfaces.
- UVS will be able to study the UV auroras that flicker around the magnetic poles of Jupiter.
- Learning how the spacecraft's instruments work is a top priority.
- Some instruments may affect each other, and changes in alignment could occur.
- The instrument teams will use target stars to calibrate everything, and some of the calibrations will occur during the flybys of Earth and Venus.
JUICE will be slingshotted on a trajectory toward Jupiter, arriving in 2031, one year after NASA's Europa Clipper mission.
