Green light for the launch of Juice, the European mission directed to the three moons of Jupiter which hide an ocean under the ice.
There are all the conditions for the launch to take place at 2.15 pm Italian time on April 13, as planned, from the European base in Kourou (French Guiana), as the Control Center technicians communicated today.
Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) of the European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing for the long journey that will take her to Jupiter and its moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Italy's contribution is important, with three tools financed and developed under the guidance of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), which will help to understand whether the enormous oceans hidden under the frozen surface of these celestial bodies are able to host life forms .
It will take Juice eight years to reach Jupiter.
He will perform 35 flybys of its moons, which he will study using a suite of ten scientific instruments.
The Rime radar (University of Trento), the Janus camera (Parthenope University of Naples) and the 3Gm instrument (Sapienza University of Rome) are Italian-led, while the Majis spectrometer is the result of an agreement between ASI and the French space agency (Cnes).
The record-breaking solar panels of the probe are also Italian, built in Leonardo's factory in Nerviano (Milan): with an area of 85 square meters, they are the largest ever made for an interplanetary flight.
The mission will conclude with an extended study of Ganymede, in 2034, which will lead Juice to become the first spacecraft to orbit a moon other than Earth's.
