PARIS, April 14 (Xinhua) — The European Space Agency (ESA) on Friday launched an “Ariane 5” rocket carrying the Jupiter Icy Satellite Explorer (JOS) from the European Space Station in French Guiana.
The European Space Agency stated that this successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious journey to uncover the secrets of the ocean worlds on the three largest moons of Jupiter: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, which contain quantities of water under their surfaces that are much larger than those in the Earth’s oceans.
“These planet-sized moons provide exciting hints that conditions for life could exist other than what is here on our ‘pale blue dot’,” the European Space Agency said in a press release.
Over the next two and a half weeks, GOS will deploy its various antennas and instrument arms, including a 16-meter-long radar antenna, a 10.6-meter-long magnetometer, and various other instruments that will study the environment of Jupiter and the interior of the icy moons’ surface, the agency said.
Explorer JOS will also monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiological and plasma environment in depth and its interaction with the moons, thus studying the Jupiter system as a prototype for giant gaseous systems across the universe.
The Goose Explorer is designed for an eight-year voyage during which it will fly over Earth and Venus to go to Jupiter. It will make 35 flybys of the three large moons as it orbits Jupiter, before changing orbits to Ganymede, the agency reported.