Scientists and engineers put their heads together to equip Juice with a unique set of solar panels, antennas, probes and booms that will help the spacecraft overcome challenges that no other European mission has faced before. To keep the high-tech equipment safe during the launch, everything will be tucked away, ready to be deployed only once Juice has separated from its Ariane 5 host rocket in space.

• After 50 minutes, the solar arrays will be deployed; the two ‘wings’ each take less than one minute to fully open. These huge cross-shaped arrays, inspired by the design of telecommunications satellites, will ensure that Juice collects enough solar energy to keep all its instruments powered up.
• After 16 hours, the medium-gain antenna will be deployed; this antenna will link Juice to mission controllers on Earth when Juices larger antenna is being utilised as a sunshield. It will also be used during the flybys of the icy moons, returning precious data for the gravity experiment to eagerly awaiting scientists on Earth.
• After five days, the 16 m-long Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna will be deployed; this instrument will make measurements that help us investigate the structure underneath the surface of Jupiter’s three largest icy moons – Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
• After 10 days, the magnetometer boom will be deployed; at the end of this 10.6 m-long boom, Juice carries an instrument to measure magnetic fields, keeping it clear of the main body of the spacecraft so that it can monitor Jupiter and its icy moons without interference from onboard instruments.
• After 12 days, the Radio Wave Instrument (RWI) antennas will be deployed; these form part of the Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation (RPWI), which will explore the radio emission and plasma environment around Jupiter and its icy moons using a suite of sensors.
• Between 13 and 17 days after launch, the four Langmuir Probes will be deployed; these devices also form part of the RPWI, with their main objective being to provide crucial information about the plasma environment around Jupiter’s icy moons.

With all external equipment in position, Juice is now ready to begin its long and difficult journey to Jupiter!

More detail on Juice’s launch and deployment timeline.

More detail about the powerful remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments that Juice will carry.

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is humanity’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.  

Juice launches on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in April 2023. It has an eight year cruise with flybys of Earth and Venus to slingshot it to Jupiter. It will make 35 flybys of the three large moons while orbiting Jupiter, before changing orbits to Ganymede.

Juice is a mission under ESA leadership with contributions from NASA, JAXA and the Israeli Space Agency. It is the first Large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme.

Credit: ESA / ATG medialab