The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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With the addition of its upper stage, the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch ESA’s Juice mission to Jupiter is taking shape in the launcher assembly building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Next, Juice itself will be fuelled, sealed inside its protective fairing and mounted atop Ariane 5 in readiness for rollout to the launch pad a couple days ahead of liftoff, scheduled for 13 April 2023.
As with other Ariane 5 launch campaigns, components were transported by ship from manufacturing sites in Europe before preparation and vertical assembly at the spaceport.
Juice is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. This ambitious mission will characterise these moons with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.