A booster of the Ariane 5 launcher that will carry ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) into space is being transferred from the booster storage building (BSE) to the launch vehicle integration building (BIL) at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The booster is installed on a platform that will be fitted onto the launch table in the BIL.

The trees and lorry give some idea of the size of this booster – at 31 m tall, it would be far too long to fit inside a 25-m swimming pool. It forms part of a pair that will be anchored to the Ariane 5’s central core stage this week. After anchoring, engineers will carry out mechanical and electrical checks. The proper functioning of these boosters is vital to get Juice into space – each contains 240 t of solid propellant, and together they provide 90 percent of the thrust at liftoff.

Juice is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. This ambitious mission will characterise these moons with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.  

These activities mark the beginning of a six-week campaign to prepare the Ariane 5 for launch on 13 April. It runs in parallel with teams preparing Juice for launch, which started three weeks earlier. On 1 April Juice will be placed onto the Ariane 5 before being encapsulated on 4 April. The whole system will be rolled out onto the launch pad on 11 April.

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit