ESA selects mission to Jupiter and its icy moons

Cork boy 55

Going to Ganymede and Europa launch in June 2022.


Video here at

The European Space Agency (Esa) is to mount a billion-euro mission to Jupiter and its icy moons.
The probe, called Juice, has just been approved at a meeting of member state delegations in Paris.
It would be built in time for a launch in 2022, although it would be a further eight years before it reached the Jovian system.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17929133

The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved a roughly €1-billion (US$1.3 billion) mission to Jupiter. On 2 May, ESA's Science Programme Committee endorsed the Jupiter Icy moons Explorer, or JUICE, as its next ‘large class’ space probe. JUICE was favoured over two other missions — the space-based New Gravitational-wave Observatory, and an X-ray telescope called ATHENA.

http://www.nature.com/news/europe-plans-mission-to-jupiter-1.10574

Cork boy 55

JUICE is name of mission


Jupiter Mission Announced by ESA to Study Possibilites of Life - as part of the news and politics series by GeoBeats.

Did you know Jupiter was called a wandering star in prehistoric times?

Today, we know relatively more about Jupiter and its moons but still our knowledge is very limited. On May 2nd, 2012, the European Space Agency announced its plans for a 2022 mission to explore Jupiter and its icy moons.

Dubbed, JUICE , it will reach its destination by 2030 - about 8 years from its takeoff in 2022. The mission will cost around 1 billion euros and will be the first european-led mission of its kind to venture to the outer solar system.

Using cameras, spectrometers and an ice-penetrating radar, the mission's purpose is to explore Jupiter's moons and study the surface and oceans for possible habitable conditions.

There's particular interest in Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. It is believed to have an ocean underneath its icy surface and its own magnetic field.

Until Galileo concluded in 1610 that objects orbiting Jupiter were its moons, they were considered to be stars. And that discovery was the first example of objects not revolving around Earth - in support of the revolutionary theory at that time by Copernicus that the Earth was not the center of Universe.

Jupiter itself has always been a source of fascination. Dubbed, the King of the Gods in ancient Roman mythology, it's mass is 318 times that of Earth. It has the great red spot - a storm that has been going on for the last 200 years and the area of the storm is massive enough include 3 planets as large as Earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7PfTch0XXQ

Cork boy 55

JUICE = Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer

The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) is a planned European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft to visit the Jovian system, focused in particular on studying three of Jupiter's moons; Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. It will characterise these worlds, all thought to have significant bodies of liquid water beneath their surfaces, as potentially habitable environments. Selection of the mission for the L1 launch slot of ESA's Cosmic Vision science programme was announced on May 2, 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moon_Explorer

Cork boy 55

The Plan

A proposed timeline is launch in 2022 on an Ariane 5 carrier rocket, and arrival at the Jupiter system in 2030. By 2033 the spacecraft should enter orbit around Ganymede, after completing various maneuvers around Jupiter and the other moons. Proposed instruments could include cameras, spectrometers, and radar.

Targets

Ganymede
Image of Ganymede's anti-Jovian hemisphere taken by the Galileo probe. Lighter surfaces, such as in recent impacts, grooved terrain and the whitish north polar cap at upper right, are enriched in water ice.


Callisto
Bright scars on a darker surface testify to a long history of impacts on Jupiter's moon Callisto in this image of Callisto from NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The picture, taken in May 2001, is the only complete global color image of Callisto obtained by Galileo, which has been orbiting Jupiter since December 1995. Of Jupiter's four largest moons, Callisto orbits farthest from the giant planet. Callisto's surface is uniformly cratered but is not uniform in color or brightness. Scientists believe the brighter areas are mainly ice and the darker areas are highly eroded, ice-poor material. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.


Europa
View of Europa taken from a range of 2,869,252 kilometers (1.6 million miles) on March 2 at 2:00 PM. The color composite is made from three black and white images taken through the orange, green and violet filters. The 170 longitude is at the center of the picture; this is the face away from Jupiter. Irregular dark and bright patches on the surface are different from the patterns on the other satellites of Jupiter and those on the Moon, Mars and Mercury. Dark intersecting lines may be faults that break the crust. JPL manages and controls the Voyager Project for NASA's Office of Space Science.

shizz

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

There's particular interest in Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. It is believed to have an ocean underneath its icy surface and its own magnetic field.

Surely they mean Europa no? I would of thought that all their interest would be there for an ocean of water? I haven't heard of there being particular interest in any of the other moons for water, or is there?

namloc1980

shizz wrote: »

Surely they mean Europa no? I would of thought that all their interest would be there for an ocean of water? I haven't heard of there being particular interest in any of the other moons for water, or is there?

Yes Ganymede is also believed to have a subsurface liquid water ocean based on Galileo findings. The problem with exploring Europa in depth is that it orbits deep inside Jupiter's powerful radiation fields. To allow a spacecraft survive at Europa it would require hefty radiation shielding and very expensive electronics that could cope with the environment, all of which would increase the weight of the spacecraft and thus increase costs significantly. The cost of a mission to Europa would be substantially more than one dedicated to Ganymede, which lies outside the worst of the radiation belts. For instance, before it got shelved, the proposed NASA Jupiter Europa Orbiter was expected to cost in the region of $4.5 Billion! Given the way the budgets for planetary exploration have gone, particularly at NASA, we should be glad to see any missions getting selected these days.

shizz

Surely not of the same extent as Europa though? I mean, I understand the cost but it's somewhat disappointing. Europa and Enceladus have always caught my imagination.

namloc1980

shizz wrote: »

Surely not of the same extent as Europa though? I mean, I understand the cost but it's somewhat disappointing. Europa and Enceladus have always caught my imagination.

Not to the same extent as Europa but still worth exploring. ESA's flagship missions are capped at €1bn; you could never do a worthwhile mission to Europa for €1bn so ESA are doing the most with the available budget.

It is disappointing and we are unlikely to see dedicated missions to Europa/Enceladus for the next 20 - 30 years.