Juice mission leads billion-euro space

However, formal selection of the mission will have to wait until a European space committee meets to discuss the contenders in May. The Juice mission would launch in 2022 and would help assess whether Jupiter's moons could support life. It has been up against two other concepts in the European Space Agency's (Esa) Cosmic Vision competition. The Juice concept envisages an instrument-packed, near five-tonne satellite at launch that would be sent out to the Solar System's biggest planet, to make a careful study of three of its Galilean moons. The mission would use the gravity of the gas giant to initiate a series of close flybys around Callisto, Europa, and then finally to put itself in a settled orbit around Ganymede. The emphasis would be on "habitability" - understanding whether there is any possibility that these moons could host microbial life. The other missions that have been up against Juice are Athena, which would be the biggest X-ray telescope ever built; and NGO, which would place a trio of high-precision satellites in space to detect gravitational waves. Esa's Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) met earlier this month to consider the different concepts. Its thoughts were then passed to the agency's executive, which has now tabled a formal proposal to member states, nominating Juice as the preferred mission to be implemented. The member state delegations will have the final say when they gather in Paris on 2 May. It is possible they could decide to go against the executive, but there is wide expectation that they will accept the recommendation. Juice will cost Esa on the order of 830m euros. By the time national agencies - the different countries in Europe - have contributed instruments, the total mission cost will exceed one billion euros. The satellite would launch in June 2022 on an Ariane rocket from French Guiana, taking almost eight years to reach the Jovian system (2030). The initial mission duration, before any extension, would be three years.