on an eight-year journey
Thursday – 22 Ramadan 1444 AH – April 13, 2023 AD
Frankfurt: «Middle East»
The “Goose” probe to explore the moons of Jupiter is scheduled to launch Thursday afternoon from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
The probe is expected to take eight years to reach the largest planet in the solar system, but after that scientists hope to gain important insights into the giant planet and its moons: the question is whether life could exist here in principle.
The probe is on board the Ariane 5 rocket. The probe “Goose”, whose name is composed of the initials in English for the phrase “Jupiter’s Icy Moon Explorer”, is being directed from the European Space Agency’s control center in Darmstadt, southwestern Germany, near Frankfurt.
The probe has a long journey ahead of it, before it begins its work on Jupiter. It is scheduled to reach Jupiter in 2031 and is the European Space Agency’s longest mission to the solar system to date. The probe is equipped with ten scientific instruments through which the moons “Europe, Callisto and Ganymede” will be seen. Among other things, radar and laser measurements are planned for flybys of the satellites.
Initially, the probe is scheduled to deploy, after its launch, solar panels of 85 square meters, which is the first critical moment, because without the panels, the long journey cannot be managed.