For three and a half years, JUICE will sweep around Jupiter, exploring its turbulent atmosphere, enormous magnetosphere and tenuous set of dark rings, as well as studying the icy moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. It will eventually go into orbit around Ganymede, a first in Solar System exploration.
All three of these planet-sized satellites are thought to have oceans of liquid water beneath their icy crusts and should provide clues on the potential for such moons to offer habitable environments.
The JUICE spacecraft will carry the most powerful remote sensing, geophysical, and
in situ payload complement ever flown to the outer Solar System.
The payload consists of 10 state-of-the-art instruments plus one experiment that uses the spacecraft telecommunication system with ground-based instruments. This payload is capable of addressing all of the mission's science goals, from
in situ measurements of Jupiter's atmosphere and plasma environment, to remote observations of the surface and interior of the three icy moons, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.
A
remote sensing package includes imaging (JANUS) and spectral-imaging capabilities from the ultraviolet to the sub-millimetre wavelengths (MAJIS, UVS, SWI). A
geophysical package consists of a laser altimeter (GALA) and a radar sounder (RIME) for exploring the surface and subsurface of the moons, and a radio science experiment (3GM) to probe the atmospheres of Jupiter and its satellites and to perform measurements of the gravity fields. An
in situ package comprises a powerful package to study the particle environment (PEP), a magnetometer (J-MAG) and a radio and plasma wave instrument (RPWI), including electric fields sensors and a Langmuir probe. An experiment (PRIDE) using ground-based very-long-baseline interferometry will provide precise determination of the spacecraft position and velocity.
ESA Science & Technology: Science Payload
