Operating in an extreme environment

Designing a spacecraft for a trip to the outer Solar System is no easy feat. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will have to cope with challenges like very high and low temperatures, a lack of sunlight at Jupiter, and high levels of radiation around Jupiter.

Juice has been specially designed to overcome all these challenges and many more. For example, shields have been built to protect the spacecraft’s sensitive electronics, large solar panels will enable it to collect lots of sunlight, Multi-Layer Insulation will keep it at a stable temperature, a large antenna will help it communicate with engineers on Earth, and a powerful onboard computer – Juice’s ‘brain’ – will help it to solve some problems independently, without needing to contact Earth at all.

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.