Space, a new step for ESA’s Juice mission

Preparations continue for Juice, the ESA mission that will start in 2022 to discover the gas giant Jupiter and its moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The Italian Space Agency reports that the transfer of the made in Italy optical head of the Majis-Moons And Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer instrument to the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (Ias), in France, has recently been authorized. Majis is a two-channel spectrometer capable of providing important elements for understanding the system composed of Jupiter and its three largest moons. The instrument is French-led, created through a bilateral agreement between the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the French space agency Cnes. The optical head represents the main element of the spectrometer. After about 5 years of intense work and the difficulties of the last year, due to the Covid-19 emergency, the instrument is ready to be shipped to France. Once arrived at the IAS, the French team, with the support of the Italian team, will complete the calibration of the spectrometer. At the end, Majis will be formally handed over to ESA which will take care of integrating the spectrometer on board the Juice probe. The spectrometer was built by the Leonardo company, with the funding and coordination of the ASI and the scientific supervision of the National Institute of Astrophysics (Inaf). The Jupiter Icy moons Explorer mission is the first mission of the Esa Cosmic Vision program and, once launched, it will take 7 years to reach Jupiter and its system of moons, and then remain at least 3 years, during which detailed observations of the planet will be made and its natural satellites, to allow the international scientific community to formulate ever more precise theories regarding the conditions of formation of planets and the processes of formation of life. Asi recalls that Ganymede, for example, is a moon so large that it is almost considered a nano-planet, with very particular characteristics such as the presence of a thin atmosphere rich in oxygen, oceans and undergrounds that could potentially host life forms. and it is the only moon in the Solar System to have its own magnetic field. This makes Ganymede extremely interesting for the scientific community. Among the countries that contribute significantly to the Juice mission there is also Italy, not only for the construction of the probe but above all for the scientific part. Of the 11 scientific instruments aboard Juice, three are Italian: the Janus high-resolution multispectral camera made by Leonardo, the Rime radar, commissioned by Asi to Thales Alenia Space, who built it in the factories in Rome and L’Aquila and the 3GM radio-science experiment developed by Thales Alenia Space-Milano. Italy has also created the Haa-High Accuracy Acceloremeter. Italy, through Leonardo, is also building the largest photovoltaic generator ever designed for an interplanetary mission. With an area of ​​94 square meters, the generator will be able to provide the necessary electrical power at a distance of more than 750 million kilometers from the Sun, where temperatures reach -230 ° C. The constant generation of electricity is an indispensable requirement, without which the mission could not pursue its scientific objectives.