RAeS Lecture: The JUICE Mission to Jupiter and its Icy Moons

JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) is the first large mission in the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme. The mission was selected in 2012 and started its implementation phase in 2015. Launched on April 14th, 2023 with an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guyana, the spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter in July 2031 after cruising to Jupiter using the Moon, Earth and Venus for gravity assists.
JUICE will spend at least four years making detailed observations of Jupiter and its Galilean icy moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. Jupiter’s icy moons possess under their cold surfaces more liquid water than Earth. Are those moons potentially habitable? What can the Jupiter system tell us about our own solar system and alien solar systems being discovered elsewhere in our Universe? JUICE was built to answer these fascinating questions.
The lecture addresses the key science objectives and the design drivers which shaped the form and functionality of the spacecraft together with a global view of the mission strategy to reach Jupiter and to accomplish the observations. The global development history and the status of the spacecraft and its 10 instruments at less than one month from completing the in-orbit commissioning is presented.
With thanks to our sponsor, Airbus.

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Very faint audio, too bad.