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
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
JUICE qualification model (QM) solar panel inside IABG's Space Simulation Test Chamber, in May 2019. The chamber was used to test the solar panel's performance at low temperatures (around -150 degrees Celsius) in a vacuum, while at the same time being illuminated with an intensity similar to the amount of sunlight at the distance of Jupiter.
A separate test, the thermal cycling test, was done at Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL) in Belgium, where the QM panel was exposed to the full range of temperatures (from -230 degrees Celsius to +110 degrees Celsius) that JUICE's solar array will encounter during its mission.
After the thermal cycling test, the QM panel was tested again in IABG's Space Simulation Test Chamber, to detect even minute performance degradations.