Thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring today’s
video. No one man builds a spaceship. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer has just launched,
and it would be easy for me to say that ESA made it. But while that is true, that glosses over
the colossal process that took a vague idea on a design board and turned it into a fully
realised behemoth of metal and carbon fibre, hurtling up through the atmosphere. Building a probe like JUICE is a massive undertaking. For JUICE, it was a task that involved 18
countries, 60 companies, 11 years, a 5-city tour, and €350.8 million of technical expertise,
equipment and resources. By delving into the story of the creation
of JUICE, we gain a greater appreciation for the incredible process by which such craft
are made. JUICE launched on the 14th April 2023. But that is only half the story. I’m Alex McColgan, and you’re watching
Astrum. And it’s time to explore the first half
of the journey of JUICE; the half that took place before the probe even left Earth. Jupiter’s icy moons – Callisto, Europa
and Ganymede – hide a fascinating secret beneath their surface. All are thought to house deep subsurface oceans,
some of them larger than the combined oceans here on Earth. These are of immense interest in the scientific
community, as such large bodies of water could potentially make these moons habitable. Water and nutrients are two of the key ingredients
for life. We have deep-sea ecosystems here on Earth
that thrive on nothing else. Could microbes also have formed in the depths
of the moons’ icy oceans? Without more information about those oceans,
it’s hard to tell. What exactly do they look like? What are their features? What are they hiding? Where is there liquid and where is there ice? By better understanding these icy worlds,
scientists can gain insight into how they formed and evolved in the past, and can better
predict the odds of life emerging in them and other icy worlds outside our solar system. As such, it was decided on the 2nd of May
2012 that a new mission to explore these moons should be launched. JUICE beat out budget proposals for a New
Gravitational wave Observatory, and an Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics, becoming
the European Space Agency’s main focus for a large-scale mission over 2015-2025. But that decision needed refining. JUICE was still only a partially formed idea. Even once it was decided that Jupiter’s
icy moons should be explored, the next question was: what scientific instruments should JUICE
carry to explore it? So, just 28 days after JUICE was announced,
ESA reached out to the wider scientific community, asking them what they would like to see on
JUICE. In the end, 10 scientific instruments were
selected, including cameras with spatial resolution as fine as 2.5m/pixel, spectrometers picking
up features down to a resolution of 75m, a laser altimeter, and plasma and particle monitors. A magnetometer would study Jupiter’s magnetic
fields, and an ice-penetrating radar would peer through its surface to see the structures
that lay beneath. These parts would be provided from various
member states of the ESA, 16 nations in total: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, and the UK. Along with them, the US and Japan’s space
agencies would also contribute. Airbus Defence and Space was selected as the
primary company in charge of building JUICE. ESA had set the expectations for the mission,
but it was up to Airbus to design, develop, integrate, and test JUICE before delivering
it to the Guiana Space Centre in France to be launched. And it would be no easy task. JUICE would be a solar panelled probe working
at the limits of how far from the Sun solar panels could be expected to function. At 740 million km, sunlight is so dim, it’s
equivalent to about 3% of what we see on Earth. The panels for JUICE would need to be massive
– 85m2 – to provide JUICE the power it needed for its various instruments. Those instruments would need to be protected. Jupiter’s environment is full of intense
radiation, which will damage unshielded components. Passing through its shadow is so cold, temperatures
reach -250°C. But JUICE would be passing Venus on its way to Jupiter, as part of one
of many gravity assists, so also would need to be able to endure hot temperatures. It was there to study magnetic fields, so
its own internal electronics couldn’t create magnetic fields able to interfere with its
sensors. And as there was a chance it was heading to
environments where life could thrive, the utmost care had to be taken that no Earth-based
bacteria would be introduced to those environments once the mission was over, and JUICE crashed
into the surface of Ganymede. These designs took time, and it wasn’t until
2017 that Airbus felt that the designs were complete. Later that year, the first parts started to
come to life. One such part was RIME. JUICE is a big craft, and its Radar for Icy
Moon Exploration is a massive 16 m long. It would be incredibly sensitive, able to
see through 9km of ice to make out structural details to a resolution of 50m. Testing the part involved creating a model
version of JUICE, and then hanging it below a helicopter, which then flew it over the
fields near Friedrichschafen, Germany. I wonder how far into the Earth it was able
to see? It must have been a fun sight for any residents
in the area. Another model was heat-tested in Noordwijk,
the Netherlands, at ESA’s main facility for spacecraft development and testing; ESTEC. JUICE’s parts would need to endure the freezing
cold of space, so technicians there used liquid nitrogen – they have 25,000L of it – to
freeze the chamber down to -180°C. However, JUICE would also be travelling near heat sources,
so they simultaneously blasted it on one side with an array of lamps and mirrors, raising
its temperature to 200°C. The JUICE model, fortunately, proved capable of enduring these
incredible temperature variations. However, these were just models. The true JUICE – the one to be launched
– began its life in Madrid. There, in July 2019, its towering, 580kg chassis
was assembled. You really get a sense of the scale of the
probe by seeing the technicians working alongside it. The completed JUICE weighs 5,300kg, although
about 3000kg of that is the chemical propellant it needs to complete its manoeuvres. JUICE needs a lot of juice. Just a month later, JUICE opened its eyes. Its Navcam had been completed in Toulouse,
and what better target for it to look at than its eventual destination, Jupiter? The image at this distance is a little pixellated,
and the saturation of Jupiter is bright as a consequence of trying to see Jupiter’s
moons too. But even before it was fully assembled, Juice
had already set eyes on its target. But the chassis was not ready to receive its
eyes, yet. First, it left Madrid, travelling across Europe
to Lampoldshausen, Germany. It would receive its thrusters there – one
large 400 N main engine, and 20 smaller thrusters. Next, it took a short trip to Friedrichschafen,
where its technical equipment began to be integrated into it. This lengthy process took a whole year, as
each piece was carefully added and tested. Balloons were used to simulate weightlessness
in space, allowing the massive 10m magnetic boom to practice unfolding itself. Like many craft, JUICE would need to fold
itself in to be able to fit on the rocket that would later carry it into space. But finally this stage was complete. Of course, this meant more testing was in
order. JUICE was taken to ESTEC, as it was home to
the largest vacuum chamber in Europe, the Large Space Simulator (LLS). Getting the large JUICE into the even larger
LLS was the work of two days. Finally, though, after careful transporting
using massive crane equipment, JUICE began its testing. Meanwhile, its components such as its antenna
got to try out ESTEC’s “blue room”. This unique room is an excellent place to
try receiving delicate radio signals – the blue spikes that make up the room do an excellent
job of cancelling out all other sounds and stray signals. RIME’s 16m antenna was scaled down for these
tests to about 80cm, to better take advantage of the facilities by using a more optimal
frequency. The tests went well, and within a few months
JUICE was on the road again. This time, it was headed for Toulouse, France. It was drawing closer to its eventual launch
site, but it had one more stop to make along the way. What probe would be complete without its solar
panels? Made up of 2356 solar cells each, the panels
of JUICE would also fold up before launch, only extending once the probe was safely up
in space. JUICE was receiving 10 panels in total, 5
on each side. And unlike the other components, which would
be hidden inside protective shielding, these panels would have to endure the heat and radiation
of space on their own. They had to be manoeuvrable, as too much energy
could cause the internal workings of JUICE to overheat. Power would be regulated carefully. All of this had to be done under the most
careful of conditions. Clean-rooms were used all along this process,
to reduce the risk of dust and bacteria getting onto the equipment. JUICE was a little behind schedule, so had
to be flown into Toulouse – representing one of the first times this had happened. This last stage of integration and testing
was evidently not easy, as it was not until January 2023 – a year and a half later,
that JUICE was finally ready. The rest of the story, you may already know. JUICE was taken to French Guiana, and on the
14th of April, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, was launched into space. It will now spend the next 8 years travelling
through space, performing 3 gravity assists around the Earth, and 1 around Venus. Finally, in 2031, it will arrive at the Jovian
system, and it will begin its careful evaluation of the icy moons there; the awe-inspiring
Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. In time, and assuming that nothing goes wrong,
the data and answers it will provide may give us insight into whether life could exist under
those frozen surfaces. And eventually, in 2035, its mission will
come to an end, and it will crash into Ganymede - it’s mission hopefully a resounding success. But it’s important to recognise just how
much of its journey has already taken place before it could leave the planet. JUICE represents a huge engineering feat,
involving hundreds of people. And while we await with eager excitement the
results of this work, it’s important to recognise and celebrate the expertise that
allowed it to come into being in the first place. If JUICE ultimately finds the answers scientists
hope for around Jupiter, it will only be because of the great endeavour that took place here
on Earth. Among the many memorable moments in JUICE’s
journey on Earth, one that caught my attention was its time in the Blue Room. The spikey foam on the walls there were highly
effective at blocking stray signals, allowing JUICE to complete its work unimpeded. And stopping stray signals is something near
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