Juice’s legacy

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) builds on scientific and technological heritage from previous space missions – including ESA’s Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta and BepiColombo – and will pave the way for future extensive exploration of the diverse extreme environments in the distant outer Solar System.

Juice will push significantly beyond the capabilities of previous missions like NASA’s Galileo (1989-2003) and NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens (1997–2017), and directly complement the results of NASA’s Juno (2011–) and Europa Clipper (2024–) missions.

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.