Juice’s journey to Jupiter

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) is set to embark on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter starting in April 2023. The mission will investigate the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants and the Jupiter system as an archetype for the numerous giant planets now known to orbit other stars.

On its journey Juice will make a series of flybys of Earth, the Earth-Moon system and Venus to set it on course for its July 2031 rendezvous in the Jovian system.

Juice will make three Earth flybys during its cruise: one of the Earth-Moon system in August 2024, one of Earth in September 2026, and once again one of Earth in January 2029.

In total Juice will spend approximately eight years cruising to Jupiter. It will reach Jupiter in July 2031, but will already begin making scientific observations six months before entering orbit around Jupiter. Juice will go on to spend many months orbiting Jupiter, making 35 flybys of icy moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and finally conducting an orbital tour of Ganymede.

Watch the full sequence of Juice’s journey to, and tour of, Jupiter and its icy moons

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.