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six weeks ago that the space probe is juice he set out to find life for Jupiter and its moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. A much-anticipated launch in Spain, since the mission took place He went through some punctual inconveniences to ESA experts have been kept in suspense. Now, the space agency has confirmed that they succeeded in doing it final performances of their instruments, leaving him ready for his arrival at Jupiter.
On its Twitter profile, ESA confirmed that the fourth Langmuir de la Juice probe has been deployed. This confirms, in the eyes of the agency, the success of the deployment of the mission, pretending ESA will confirm Juice in full flight configuration. In addition, the moment has been captured by the cameras on board the probe.
On the other hand, in a statement, ESA details the hard work that has gone into these deployments over the past week to prepare Juice for its journey. In the 6-week window since Juice disembarked and began its journey, the control team successfully deployed “every solar array, antenna, probe and weapon” that was tightly guarded.
The Juice finally makes it
According to the European Space Agency, it was the last of the final deployments “rotate and lock the probes and antennas that make up the RPWI Juice instrument” (its acronym in English, ‘Juice’s Radio & Plasma Wave Investigation’). With everything in place, the probe is already in its “final form” to face its mission of searching for “possible habitats” on Jupiter’s moons and on the planet itself.
The entire process was captured in a series of pictures from the two Juice monitoring cameras. These were in charge of capturing every step of the deployment practically from the beginning. “In the hours after launch, these cameras took Juice’s first selfies from space.” They describe their work as critical when it comes to “verifying that every part of the spacecraft could be deployed.”
In the words of Angela Dietz, deputy director of spacecraft operations for the mission, these weeks are “normal, but very exciting.” He asserts that they have “faced and overcome a number of challenges so that Juice is in the right shape to get the best science for its journey to Jupiter”.
Just this week, the four Langmuir probes and the three RPWI antennas could be deployed. Taken together, these are just 7 of 10 RPWI sensors that measure “variations in the electronic and magnetic fields around Jupiter, as well as radio waves and cold plasma.” RPWI said it is, according to ESA, “the first device to generate a 3D map of the electric fields around Jupiter”, providing important information about the planet and its moons.
Capture the ESA GIF recording the deployment of the fourth Langmuir probe.
Just last week, when Juice was about 8 million kilometers from Earth, ESA engineers turned forward for the first time and succeeded. the JANUS, the probe’s optical camera instrument. This will lead to the taking of images of up to 13 different spectra of Jupiter; from violet light to the near infrared.
“Unlike RPWI sensors that are mounted on arms far from Juice’s main body, JANUS is attached to an optical bench; this means that it remains stable when a focus towards your goals. It is like using a tripod here on Earth, “they explain from the agency. Finally, during commissioning last week, a complete hardware check was carried out, “with all subsystems activated and monitored.”
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There is a tour in front of The Juice, fully operational more than 600 million kilometers, or what is the same, 8 years of interplanetary travel to which must be added another 4 working on Jupiter. In addition to the largest planet in the solar system, Juice will also study each of Jupiter’s moons; Europa, Callisto and especially, Ganymede.