Opportunities for media: ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer

The January event hosted at Airbus Toulouse will unveil a commemorative plaque mounted on the spacecraft as a tribute to Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei who was the first to view Jupiter and its largest moons through a telescope in 1609.

Over 400 years later, humanity’s ever-long desire to look up and explore worlds beyond our own lives on. Europe and its international partners are sending Juice to explore this fascinating planet and the moons we believe to have vast quantities of water buried under their surfaces in volumes far greater than in Earth’s oceans. These planet-sized moons offer us tantalising hints that conditions for life could exist other than here on our pale blue dot and as such are some of the most compelling destinations in our Solar System.

Juice was selected in 2012 as the first ‘Large-class’ mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme. With its powerful instrument package, Juice will provide the most detailed analysis yet of Jupiter and its water-worlds as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe. Its results will not only help us dig deeper into the family history of our own Solar System but will also place in context results from ESA’s fleet of exoplanet missions analysing Jupiter-like systems.

An extensive test campaign has taken place over the last years to prepare the Juice spacecraft for its eight-year cruise and for operating in the harsh radiation and temperature environment of Jupiter, more than 600 million kilometres from Earth. The test campaign will soon be complete, and final preparations will move to Europe’s launch site in French Guiana for lift-off on an Ariane 5.

Media highlights for the months ahead follow the programme and registration details below.

Programme overview 20 January 2023 


All times CET

11:00   Arrival and formalities; equipment cleaning
Media briefing (auditorium) and visits to cleanroom in small groups for presentation of the Galileo plaque. Presentations will be given by ESA and Airbus spokespeople.
Refreshments and lunch will be provided.
14:00 End

• Please note that strict cleanliness protocols will be in place for entering the cleanroom with electronic equipment
• Smartphones are forbidden in the clean room: make sure you bring an independent camera or recording device
• Individual interviews with ESA and Airbus spokespeople will also be possible outside of the cleanroom

Please register by emailing Guilhem Boltz (guilhem.g.boltz@airbus.com) by 9 January 2023 with proof of identity and dietary requirements.

Media highlights first quarter 2023

The following overview of highlights for media is provided for planning the months ahead:

20 January: Galileo plaque unveiling and last opportunity to see Juice. Additional Juice animations to be released.

February-March: Spacecraft launch campaign at Europe’s Spaceport and launch simulation training at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Behind-the-scenes image and video highlights will be shared via esa.int as available.

March: Pre-launch media opportunity at the Spaceport: Media will have the opportunity to tour the launch facilities, collect footage, and conduct interviews. Please contact media@esa.int by the end of January to express interest in this trip.

Early April: Pre-launch media briefing (online): Approximately one week before launch an online media briefing in five languages will provide the latest updates on the preparations for launch.

5-30 April: Launch window. Spacecraft separation and acquisition of signal is expected approximately 30 minutes after launch, with solar array deployment around 50 minutes after launch. A monitoring camera will image the deployed solar arrays and other spacecraft appendages. Images will be released as soon as available. For additional details of the launch day timeline, see the Juice mission kit.

Launch day events (in person): Media events will be hosted both at the Spaceport and at ESOC. A Social Space event will also be hosted at ESOC in the day(s) prior to and including launch. Invitations to apply to participate and detailed programmes for the various events will be issued nearer the time. A launch broadcast will also be available to watch remotely via ESA Web TV.

More information

The Juice mission kit is available here in English. It will be available in other European languages in early 2023.

Images: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Search?SearchText=juice&result_type=images

Videos: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Search?SearchText=Juice&result_type=videos

How to engage with the mission:
Web: esa.int/Juice
Social media: @ESA_JUICE @esascience #ESAJuice

Follow ESA on:
Twitter: @ESA
Instagram: Europeanspaceagency
Facebook: EuropeanSpaceAgency
YouTube: ESA
LinkedIn: European Space Agency - ESA
Pinterest: European Space Agency - ESA

About Juice

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is humanity’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. This ambitious mission will characterise these moons with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.  

Juice launches on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in April 2023. It has an eight year cruise with flybys of Earth and Venus to slingshot it to Jupiter. It will make 35 flybys of the three large moons while orbiting Jupiter, before becoming the first spacecraft to change orbits to another world – Ganymede.

Juice is a mission under ESA leadership with contributions from NASA, JAXA and the Israeli Space Agency. It is the first Large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme. 

For more information, please contact media@esa.int