The launch of the JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft, which is set to explore the largest ice moon of the solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter, has been delayed by a day due to bad weather.
The European Space Agency (ESA) had planned to launch JUICE, the first-ever Jupiter exploration probe from Europe, on an Ariane 5 rocket at 9:15 a.m. on the 13th of April from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, but due to the increased risk of lightning, the countdown was halted 7 minutes before the launch.
Arianespace confirmed that the Ariane 5 rocket and the JUICE spacecraft were in good condition. The ESA has rescheduled the launch for the 14th of April at 9:14 a.m. (Korean time: 9:14 p.m.).
JUICE has only one launch window available. Unlike typical rocket launches, which have several hours of launch time, JUICE must launch precisely at the scheduled time because it has adopted a flight plan that utilizes the gravity of Venus, Earth, and the Moon.
JUICE is scheduled to perform a gravity assist flyby of both the Earth and the Moon in August 2024. The window of opportunity to launch JUICE toward this trajectory is only one second each day. Therefore, if they miss the one-second window, they will have to delay the launch until the following day. If they fail to launch by the 18th of April, they will need to modify the flight path.
The JUICE launch is the largest space exploration project planned for this year. It was selected as one of the “Space Vision 2015-2025” projects by the European Space Agency in 2012, and a total of 1.6 billion euros has been invested in this large-scale exploration project.
JUICE will arrive in Jupiter’s orbit, which is on average 778 million kilometers away from Earth, in 2031, and explore three of Jupiter’s four largest ice moons, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, excluding the volcanic moon Io, until 2035. It is planned to make 35 close flybys to altitudes ranging from 200 to 1000 kilometers.
These three ice moons are celestial bodies that are receiving attention for their potential to harbor life as it is estimated that there may be liquid oceans beneath the surface. For example, it is estimated that Europa, which is slightly smaller than the moon, has a liquid ocean under a 15-25 km thick ice surface. The Hubble Space Telescope observed water plumes rising up to 200 km from the surface of Europa in 2016. Scientists estimate that the combined amount of water on these three ice moons is six times that of the Earth’s oceans.