The making of the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE)

December 3, 2023 4:36 PM

JUICE launched on April 14th and has been making its way to Jupiter's moons! This 2 hour video is a loving, painstaking look at the incredible teams who worked within the European Space Agency to make JUICE. If you're into micro-details of things like testing to find out how clean the spacecraft is magnetically, to vibration testing of the solar panel array (which is 85 square meters deployed), to logistics challenges, to the contest to solicit art from children to decorate the launch vehicle, this movie is for you. You can also track JUICE's progress through the solar system in an incredible trajectory with multiple planetary fly-bys to pick up speed here.
posted by jasper411 (8 comments total)

This looks excellent and inspiring, jasper411. Thank you for the post.
posted by doctornemo at 6:22 PM on December 3, 2023

I can't ever think of JUICE without thinking of that long (in one sense of the word) conversation between Pioneer 9 and 10 that JUICE eventually joined.
posted by Ickster at 6:29 PM on December 3, 2023 [15 favorites]

What's really cool is that the moons that JUICE will visit have varied physical characteristics that make them each unique candidates for purposes of exploring life outside of Earth.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:18 PM on December 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

ickster that was effing brilliant
Bois is a national treasure
thank you
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:33 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

JUICE will perform a Lunar-Earth gravity assist next summer, and then it's going to swing around Venus and two more times around Earth. Thanks, FORTRAN.
posted by credulous at 7:31 AM on December 4, 2023

I had forgotten how brilliant 17776 was. Thank you for reminding me.
posted by Hogshead at 8:32 AM on December 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Finally got around to watching this. Fantastic!
posted by inexorably_forward at 1:31 AM on December 8, 2023

...and then 17776, which was new to me. Huh!
posted by inexorably_forward at 3:27 AM on December 8, 2023