The European Area Company’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft has arrived at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana for the ultimate preparations for launch.
JUICE departed (opens in new tab) from Airbus services in Toulouse, France, on Feb. 9 and has been unpacked at Kourou spaceport. The 13,668-pound (6,200 kilograms) spacecraft will undergo ultimate checks and fueling forward of launch on an Ariane 5 rocket.
The mission is scheduled to raise off on April 13, when it’ll embark on an eight-year voyage to Jupiter to watch its icy moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.
Associated: NASA spacecraft snaps gorgeous new photo of Jupiter’s moons Io and Europa
The spacecraft carries 10 science payloads and can make 35 flybys of the moons, finding out their magnetic fields and in search of clues concerning the circumstances of their subsurface oceans and if these may probably help life.
JUICE will lastly enter orbit round Ganymede in 2034 for the ultimate a part of its mission and grow to be the primary spacecraft to orbit a moon aside from our personal.
As soon as in space, JUICE will deploy large solar arrays with a total space of 915 sq. toes (85 sq. meters), which can be wanted to energy the spacecraft whereas orbiting Jupiter at a mean distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers) away from the sun.
JUICE was chosen by ESA as a flagship mission in 2012 as a part of its Cosmic Imaginative and prescient program. NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA) and the Israel Area Company additionally contributed to the mission. NASA, in the meantime, is working to prepared its Europa Clipper mission for launch in 2024.
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