The vehicle is scheduled to be launched in April by an Ariane 5 rocket (Lionel Bonaventure/AFP)
The European probe JUICE has completed preparations for its launch on an eight-year journey to a planet Purchaser And its icy moons, and aims to explore the possibility of life forms in its oceans under a block of ice.
Satellite Joss is living his last moments on Planet Earth In the white hall of the company Airbus Manufactured in Toulouse, France, where the impact appeared on the faces of engineers, technicians and scientists who worked for years on this important project for the European Space Agency.
They explain to the media that the 6.2-tonne vehicle is equipped with ten scientific instruments, an antenna with a diameter of 2.50 meters, and huge solar panels that should be tested one last time.
It is expected that the spacecraft will be placed in the next few days, with its wings folded, inside a container, in which it will be transported to Kourou, in French Guiana, where it is scheduled to be launched next April by an Ariane 5 rocket.
A memorial plaque was placed on the back of the vehicle in tribute to Galileo, the first to discover Jupiter and its largest moon in 1610.
Cyril Cavill, director of the “JOS” project at Airbus Defense and Space, while holding a copy of Galileo’s “Astronomical Letter”, the first reference in the history of the world on astronomy and the world, explains that the volcanic moon Io and the three icy moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto are “the first moons to be discovered.” Change our moon.”
Earth and Venus are like a catapult
However, the task requires patience, as the journey is long, and the vehicle is expected to reach its target in 2031. The journey will also be tortuous, as it is not possible to take a direct path to reach Jupiter, which is located 740 million km from the sun.
After its launch, Joss will need Earth’s gravity, and then Venus’ gravity. And the scientific director of the mission at the European Space Agency, Nicola Altobelli, says that the Earth and Venus will be “like a catapult that gives (the probe) the momentum necessary to reach Jupiter.”
The 85 square meter solar panels are supposed to store maximum energy before they encounter freezing temperatures (around -220 degrees).
And when the vehicle reaches its destination, after it has passed a distance of two billion kilometers, it will be located in the orbit of Jupiter after a braking operation that it implements completely independently. “If this process fails, the mission fails,” says Cyril Cavill.
The probe will conduct a survey of the Jupiter system, that is, of the planet and its satellites, by flying over its moons, and then orbiting Ganymede, which is the largest of them. The cameras, sensors, spectrometers and radars carried by “Goose” will try to collect data that allow knowing the possibility of conditions favorable to life.
These conditions could be available not on the frozen surface, but at a depth of 10 or 15 kilometers below it, where the liquid ocean moves, which is a potentially favorable environment for primitive life forms in deep habitats, such as bacteria, as explained and explained by the Director-General of the European Space Agency. Josef Aschbacher, who says: “We will not find big fish.”
The existence of these forms of life requires the availability of a number of conditions, including liquid water and a source of energy, which in this case may be the “tidal effects” exerted by Jupiter’s gravity on its moons.
Thanks to Ganymede’s magnetic signals, Joss will be able to detect if water is attached to a rocky core, which could allow chemical elements necessary for life, such as nutrients, to “dissolve in water”, according to Nicola Altobelli.
The American probe, Europa Clipper, will complete the search by exploring the moon, Europa.
In the event that it is proven that the conditions for the existence of forms of life are available on the two moons, the “next logical step” will be to send a lander to them, which is “one of the dreams of scientists,” says Cyril Cavill, who feels affected by the fact that the probe “will end its life on the surface of the moon.” Ganymede“.
(AFP)
