Juice launch and deployment timeline

Update: Juice launched on 14 April 2023. Explore the spacecraft's journey to Jupiter: Where is Juice now?

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will launch in April 2023 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 launcher. Juice will separate from the Ariane 5 28 minutes after launch, then five minutes later, ESA will start tracking Juice using ground stations. Between 99 minutes and 17 days post launch, Juice’s solar arrays, antennas, probes and magnetometer boom will be deployed, after which Juice is ready to continue its eight-year journey to Jupiter. 

Juice will make detailed observations of Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of instruments. The mission will characterise these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats, explore Jupiter’s complex environment in depth, and study the wider Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe.