ESA's JUICE mission to Jupiter
ESA's JUICE mission to Jupiter
After an eight-year journey, ESA's JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft will reach the Jovian system. In the first phase of the mission, the orbiter will complete 35 close flybys of the three large icy moons Callisto (top right), Europa (in front of Jupiter's clouds) and Ganymede (in the foreground). The volcanic moon Io (left) can only be observed from a distance due to its high radiation intensity close to Jupiter. During the second phase of the mission, JUICE will be steered from planetary orbit in 2034 and 2035 into an orbit around Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System. There, the probe will first observe the satellite from an altitude of 5000 kilometres, then from an altitude of 500 kilometres and, depending on fuel reserves, perhaps from an altitude of 200 kilometres.
Credit:
ESA/ATG medialab (orbiter); NASA/JPL/DLR (Jupiter, moons)