Yellow book is available (13.1.2012) - JUICE.

Thanks, that's cool. I hope they can get approval and stay on time. 2022 isn't that far away in the scheme of things.

Thanks - I finally took a look at this and it is obvious that this would be an extremely interesting mission. A 'Galileo 2' (with the omission of Io though) in a way but with modern and far better instruments (and antenna!). I also get the impression that it would very nicely complement a possible NASA Europa mission since that mission now seems likely to focus almost exclusively on Europa while JUICE is more of a Jupiter System mission - it even includes nice coverage of Jupiter's polar region.

Wasn't a final decision about JUICE supposed to have been made yesterday? I hope they picked it...

rumors say that JUICE has been recommended for adoption as ESA's next large mission. nothing official so far...
great news if true!

It looks official enough (at least for me).

ESA/SPC(2012)12

This is great news. Detailed information is available and from what I've read this mission is vastly superior to Galileo (even if its HGA had worked), thanks to modern instruments etc. (a difference of at least 30 years). In a way this is Jupiter's 'Cassini' - not as big but with more modern instruments.

The link mentions an ice penetrating radar.


I am agog with the possibilities. They also discuss the radiation requirements and seem confident the cumulative dose will be survivable.

I have another informations about L missions.
JUICE was recommended by SSAC and SSEWG groups, ATHENA by AWG group and NGO by PSWG group.
JUICE is preferred choice, but it isn't still 100% certain. Final (formal) decision by ESA members is expected on 2 May.

Fantastic news! I've very impressed by the high data rate (1.4Gbit/day) and the ability to operate 11 instruments on solar power at 5AU. Also glad to see that they are not at all relying on NASA or JAXA support for the mission, although I hope those agencies can support the mission in some way.

I was split between JUICE and LISA, but LISA or NGO or whatever it is called now would have been my favorite choice, for the Nobel prize science it would produce and for the technological challenges it implied, but still I'm quite happy with JUICE!

You can read the current presentation summarizing the mission from the proposal team at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/mar2012/prese...ICE_Summary.pdf

Looks to me like they're planning something around 350-400 kbps - which would be spectacular from Jupiter. Can't find a data rate directly, but can infer it from the 1.4Gb in an 8hr pass.

Obviously, I think everybody here would have preferred it if ALL the missions were commissioned!

But if it is JUICE that's been picked, it sounds tremendous. Something to look forward to in a few years. Plus it will be good to finally get global coverage of Europa instead of the pinpricks of data that came from Galileo. Reading the Atlas of the Galilean Satellites is a rewarding but frustrating experience - like hearing a few seconds of Beethoven's Ninth or seeing a couple of square feet of Guernica...

No global Europa coverage from JUICE, except at low resolution- there are only two Europa flybys, both at similar longitudes. Still, with high data rates and an ice penetrating radar, these should provide a spectacular improvement in our understanding.

John

Eighteen years (!)

But I should say-- I'm still excited nonetheless!

Arrival date 2030

Earth-Venus-Earth-Earth gravity assists. Tradeoff for having a big spacecraft with relatively moderate onboard delta-V capability.

Impressive imaging capabilities (from the yellow book mentioned in the first message of this thread):

A narrow angle framing camera with 1024x1024 pixels, 0.3° FOV and 12 filters that can also do pushbroom imaging. This is roughly two times Galileo's resolution (800x800 and 0.47°) and means that e.g. Io monitoring is possible in addition to Jupiter and icy satellite imaging. For comparison, Cassini's NAC has a FOV of 0.35° and 1024x1024 pixels.

A wide angle camera with 1024x1024 pixels, 117° FOV and 12 filters.

A hyperspectral pushbroom imager with 3.4° FOV, 0.4-5.2 μm spectral range and spectral sampling 2.8-5.0 nm, lines x arrays=640 x 480.

These specs are apparently not final though.

I did some quick comparison, what could be seen from JUICE, based on informations in Yellow book.

Image resolution comparison between older missions and JUICE's NAC camera:


And images of different bodies in Jovian system at resolutions obtainable by same camera:



Some more informations are on my blog.

Another hurdle has been crossed - JUICE was approved unanimously by the ESA member state delegations today. News here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17917102

Great news - on to Jupiter!

Same news from ESA.

I LOVE outer planet missions.

JUICE Spacecraft gets to Jupiter in 2030… I will be 77 that year and my grandsons will be 24. In the span of my life I will have seen PIONEERS, VOYAGERS, GALILEO, ULYSSES, CASSINI, NEW HORIZONS, JUNO (maybe a new Europa/ Titan/ Enceladus) encounters with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and perhaps some Kuiper Belt objects. Ironically by 2030 we may have sensed the air of terrestrial type exoplanets. But physical travel to the bodies in our own solar system is still at a snail’s pace and outer planet missions (given chemical and low power electric propulsion) are still events for a generation. SIGH!

Yes the flight time with those gravity assists are considerable, and that even when launched by one Ariane 5.
Now that Ariane 5 ME will be available with the new upper stage, a shorter flight time might be available at the time for launch.

Yet of the about 5 ton to be sent to Jupiter, up to 3 tons might have to be propellant, some substantial part of that to be "juiced" for going into orbit around Ganymede.
And even though quite some of you appear to be pining for Europa, it is one really interesting moon, a magnetic field and where the grooved terrain is a sign of ice tectonics. And perhaps one liquid interior also, though not from current tidal heating so either from internal heat or preserved from the past when the interaction with Io and Europa were stronger, (the eccentricity is very low right now, but it might vary over quite long timescales - a possible connection to the magnetic field there, and Ganymede might even have auroras!)
Now with such a name they might have a perfect opportunity to get a sponsor, though it might be at the risk of getting the suggestion to have the space probe painted orange. *Ducks*

I'd be ok with orange but not sure what that would do to the spacecraft's thermal properties.

Agree that Ganymede is indeed worthy of this visit. As is Callisto. All the Galilean moons are exciting worlds in their own right.

Craig

I am amazed by how much solar panel technology has progressed in the last 30 years... Galileo had two RTG delivering 570 W at launch and 485 W at end of mission, JUICE will have solar panels delivering up to 636 W at end of mission. wow!

Ah! Instrument selection this month!
Let's see if the two instrument packages that I am involved in get selected.

January 2013 SSEWG and SSAC recommendations
February 2013 Preliminary technical KO of instrument Phase A
February 2013 SPC selection

I bet we already have contributors here imagining those 'Kodak moment' shots we all love.

A crescent Jupiter half risen above a craggy Ganymedean ridge with an Io suspended above the nightside perhaps . . .

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sc..._moons_explorer

Anybody know the specific team affiliations? The release doesn't say.

Nice list of instruments. Doing all that w/o a scan platform like Cassini?

That's something that would be interesting to know - turning a spacecraft with big solar arrays is more difficult than turning a spacecraft like Cassini. It would also be extremely interesting to know something about the instrument specs.

anybody knows the difference between the Gravity & Geophysics of Jupiter and Galilean Moons and the Planetary Radio Interferometer & Doppler experiments?
they look like both radio tracking experiments

For PRIDE it says there is no spacecraft component, just the VLBI, so maybe 3GM is only the spacecraft component?

I do miss a micrometeoroid-experiment. SUDA (SUrface Dust Analyser) not onboard?

Does anyone know what the Irish involvement is? The ESA press release gives no details and they haven't replied to my query yet.

Not sure about Irish part, but I can provide info about Czech involvement if someone's interested.
Google translation of recent Czech Space Office announcement.

A Russian Ganymede lander in addition to the European JUICE orbiter ?
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_11/Mission-...-than-expected/
Marc.

More detailed information on the instruments:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=50073

In particular, the camera (JANUS) has a field of view of 1.3 degrees and carries 13 filters. This is a bigger field of view than the 0.3 degrees discussed earlier in this thread but the size in pixels is not shown (I'd love to see more detailed information on the camera specs). 2048x2048 wouldn't surprise me and would result in a resolution comparable to the Galileo camera. There's no mention of a wide angle camera and there's no information on whether pushbroom imaging is possible. One good thing about 1.3° vs. 0.3° is that global scale mosaics of Jupiter would have been a problem with a 0.3° FOV (huge number frames).

MAJIS is also a very interesting instrument - a hyperspectral imager from 0.4 to 5.7 microns with a top resolution of ~100 km for Jupiter and 25 m for Ganymede.

I found some additional information on the imaging experiment (JANUS) here:

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPS...PSC2013-506.pdf

Not much new information on the camera itself though. The most interesting thing to me is that it has WAC imaging capabilities in addition to the 1.3° field of view and it's a framing camera. Reading between the lines it seems to me that the image size in pixels is ~2048x2048. This is not explicitly mentioned but the resolution numbers seem to imply something like this.

However, there is considerable information on the planned imaging coverage. In particular, compared to Galileo the coverage of Europa looks impressive to me since there are only two close Europa flybys.

More detailed information on the JUICE instruments is gradually becoming available. I recently found this interesting PDF document from the 45th LPSC (2014) conference:

http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/pdf/2094.pdf

The most interesting new information to me is a list of the JANUS filters:

Click to view attachment

Airbus has won the 350.8 mln euro contract to build JUICE over Thales Alenia's competition.


http://spacenews.com/airbus-to-build-esas-...-juice-orbiter/

The JUICE project has started the JUICE Test Campaign Journal. Hopefully with many more entries to come, so that it would not become such a stealth project like Solar Orbiter.

The JUICE probe will have two JUICE Monitoring Cameras (JMC) with RGYB pixel arrays. Recently, it was revealed that the JMC would even get a Colour Chart (CC) for true colour reconstruction. Spectacular views guaranteed!

OBTW, ESA has without much ado given up on the June 2022 launch opportunity. JUICE is now scheduled for an August-September 2022 launch, which translates to no Mars flyby (but one Moon-Earth flyby), Jupiter Orbit Insertion some one and a half years, and Ganymede Orbit Insertion two years later than planned for a June 2022 launch.

Taking into account ESA's dumb way to communicate JUICE's launch delay to 2023 and that so far no new official launch date and trajectory has been published, I am wondering if ESA's PR people are trying to tease us with this sort of tweet

Unbelievable! Finally, someone with a Twitter account has got the cojones to ask ESA about the JUICE launch date and has even got a more or less useful reply: "...stay tuned!"

A new JUICE baseline trajectory (CReMA 5.0b23.1) is published - launch on 5 April 2023. Earlier, August 2023 was mentioned as back-up launch date. By the way, is there an easy and convenient way to read or visualize Orbit kernels?

You can use SPICE-enhanced Cosmographia https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/cosmographia.html but I would call that neither easy nor convenient. There's a steep learning curve, especially with setting up the JSON files.

At least for ESA Missions there are official Cosmographia add-ons that make adding them pretty simple:

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/spice/cosmographia