Tomorrow, Thursday 13 April 2023, the Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) space mission organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) will start. An Ariane 5 carrier rocket will take off at 2:15pm Italian time from the Kourou space base, in the French Guyana. On board a probe which, once in orbit, will study: what are the conditions for the formation of planets, for the appearance of life, how the solar system works.

The Leonardo Group also participates in the Juice mission, for which it created the photovoltaic panels (85 squares meters) of the probe built by the industry itself, the largest ever built for an interplanetary mission. Through Thales Alenia Space (joint-venture Leonardo 33% and Thales 67%) the Rime tool and the Ka Translator component of the 3GM tool were created. Through Telespazio (jv Leonardo 67% and Thales 33%) it provides support to the European space operations center Esoc (European Space Operations Centre).

In fact, the Italian aerospace company has created, in collaboration with the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), the Janus high-resolution camera: it is a hyperspectral optical device for the Majis instrument, produced in collaboration between France (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and Italy (ASI). The probe, in which the Italian Space Agency has strongly collaborated, has as its objective the exploration of Jupiter and its icy moons: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.