At the foot of the European Juice probe 5 m high, in a clean room of the company Airbus Defense & Space from Toulouse, Jerôme, Florent and Nicolas, three young engineers, know that they are living a unique moment. Far from the “classic” communication satellites, they have been working for several months on this spacecraft, a little jewel of technology, which, on April 14, will leave Kourou aboard Ariane 5 for an eight-year journey, heading for Jupiter and its moons.
“Everything is new, it’s unique. It’s not a generic platform, so all the problems we’ve experienced are new problems that we hadn’t had before”, point out the three employees who admit to having sometimes had cold sweats during the phases. assembly and testing.
A lead sarcophagus against radiation
A real technical challenge, Juice and his ten instruments will have to face complicated conditions during their 2 billion kilometer journey which will take them to Jupiter and its three icy moons: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.
“The probe will have to survive a very aggressive environment around Jupiter, it will suffer damage from radiation. To protect it and its instruments, we had to shield them with lead, create a safe that protects the most sensitive equipment. This is the first time that we have used this type of technique”, explains Cyril Cavel, project manager at Airbus Defense & Space, which mobilized nearly 500 people to bring the project imagined by the European Space Agency (ESA) to life. .
“Juice’s primary goal is to seek out favorable conditions for life as we know it on Earth, in deep habitats, under the ice of the moons around Jupiter. Data from Galileo, a previous mission, showed that around these moons there were disturbances in Jupiter’s magnetic field. And these magnetic field disturbances are linked to conductive layers under the ice, most likely liquid water with dissolved salts which allow a magnetic induction phenomenon”, explains Nicolas Altobelli, in charge of the Juice scientific mission at the ESA.
Under the ice of the moons
To better understand these phenomena, cameras, infrared spectrometers or ultraviolet spectrographs will observe Jupiter and its moons from afar. Other instruments will sniff out what is happening around the probe. And perhaps they will succeed in capturing elements allowing them to confirm that this organic matter exists under the layer of ice. “When you look from afar you see certain compositions, certain physical characteristics of matter. We say to ourselves that we have to succeed in reconstructing the physical and chemical properties of this material before it is irradiated”, continues the scientist from the European Space Agency.
But before getting there, he will have to wait another eight long years. The probe will not arrive in orbit around Jupiter until July 2031, after a long journey during which it will use gravitational assistance from Earth, Venus, and then again from Earth to gain momentum and catapult up to Jupiter and its three moons. The very ones that Galileo saw through his telescope in 1610. To pay homage to the famous Italian astronomer, on a sheet of black insulation, we can imagine the reproduction of the cover of his treatise which has inspired many generations. Next to it is a list of nearly 250 names, those who participated in this adventure which should only end in 2035, when Juice will spit on Ganymede.
There are those of Jérôme, Florent and Nicolas, the three young engineers who are quite proud to participate “in advancing science to answer the question we all ask ourselves: can there be another form of life elsewhere? But before they have their heads in the stars, they are still keeping their feet on the ground, ready to install Juice’s XXL solar panels over the next few days and follow the probe to Guyana to put the finishing touches on it. on the day of the great departure.