ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) has taken its first monitoring camera images showing part of the spacecraft with our home planet as a stunning backdrop.
This image was taken by JUICE’s monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 14:42 CEST on April 14, 2023, following launch at 14:14 CEST. Image credit: ESA / JUICE / JMC / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Launched on April 14, 2023, JUICE will make detailed observations of Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons — Callisto, Europa and in particular Ganymede — with a suite of ten unique science instruments, one experiment and one radiation monitor.
The mission will characterize these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats.
It will also explore Jupiter’s complex environment in depth, and study the wider Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe.
JUICE will complete a number of Solar System firsts.
It will be the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon other than our own — Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede.
And en route to Jupiter it will perform the first ever lunar-Earth gravity assist to save propellant.
This image was taken by JMC1 at 14:22 CEST, following launch at 14:14 CEST. Image credit: ESA / JUICE / JMC / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
The spacecraft carries two monitoring cameras — JMC1 and JMC2 — located on its ‘body’ to record various deployments.
JMC1 is located on the front of the spacecraft and looks diagonally up into a field of view that sees a part of one of the solar arrays, and will eventually see deployed antennas.
JMC2 is located on the top of the spacecraft and is placed to monitor the multi-stage deployment of the 16 m-long Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna.
Shortly after launch on April 14, 2023, JUICE captured this image with its JMC2 camera. Image credit: ESA / JUICE / JMC / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
RIME is an ice-penetrating radar that will be used to remotely probe the subsurface structure of the large moons of Jupiter.
The radar is currently in stowed configuration; it will unfold in stages over the coming days.
Images will be taken to capture the full deployment.
The monitoring cameras will also be active during various mission operations, including gravity assist flybys of the Moon, Earth and Venus during the cruise to Jupiter.
