WEEKEND

Inside the mission to discover

life on Jupiter's icy moons
The National visits the spacecraft about to embark on a quest to discover the
secrets of the planet's satellites

Tim Stickings
Toulouse
Jan 27, 2023
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If there is life beyond Earth, it could be lurking in the deepest oceans

of a moon of Jupiter, keeping its secret from humans since the dawn
of time.

But Ganymede, Europa and Callisto are not the hiding places they
once were, with a spacecraft about to be launched that could get us
closer to what European scientist Nicolas Altobelli calls “the smoking
gun”.

“It’s like a big ship that we send to

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discover America,” said Mr Altobelli,
Europe's space agency left with
the mission manager of the Jupiter Icy
'huge problem' of replacing
Moons Explorer, or Juice, which
Russian launchers
launches in April.

Engineers are taking no chances.

When The National saw Juice up close at an Airbus factory in France,
nobody could even look at the spacecraft without changing into
shower caps and surgical gowns and handing in their smartphones.

The uncrewed orbiter is about the size of a garden shed, has gadgets
strapped to its hull and is expected to reach Jupiter in 2031. It will
carry vast solar panels to soak up what little energy it can, 800
million kilometres away, where the Sun could barely power a
hairdryer.
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