ESA's Juice blasts off to squeeze secrets from Jupiter's moons

The European Space Agency's Juice probe began its eight-year trek to study Jupiter and its major moons on Friday, after launching into space aboard an Ariane 5. The heavy-lifting rocket blasted off from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana at 1414 CEST (1214 UTC or 0814 ET) today. ESA had hoped to send Juice off into space …

[Eclectic Man]

Fare well JUICE

All the best to the team and here's hoping the mission goes well. The launch was initially delayed due to possible lightning, so glad it got up eventually.

Looking forward to the mission updates when it does gravity assist fly-by's, particularly of Venus, and of course, when it eventually arrives at Jupiter.

Fingers crossed!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to know ..

.. how they got "juice probe" past the censors..

:)

Good luck to another good sciece project, though, I hope it goes well. This is proper long term planning..

[werdsmith]

Re: I just want to know ..

Long term indeed. This mission proposal goes back to before 2010, it got the nod in 2012 and 11 years later it has launched. Another 11+ years to start its primary mission science and the analysis of data will continue for years after. Some people involved in this mission are retired already, many people who will be involved in the goal science haven’t started University yet.

Politicians should learn from science.

[Jemma]

Any one else wondering...

If in 300 years we're going to get an immortal indestructible robot probe calling itself Jizz popping back to see its creator sending central locking tones as IFF recognition...?

Sleep deprivation and cancer, always a good decision..

[J. Cook]

Re: Any one else wondering...

... I had kind of hoped that it would be created an absolute bonkers type of collage football (not soccer, but the US kind) in roughly 20,000 years after it gains sentience. (huh?)

[Oliver Mayes]

I can't believe how complicated the transit to Jupiter is going to be. Going from Earth to Venus, back to Earth, then to Mars, back to Earth again, before finally slingshotting on to Jupiter. The mechanics of it are amazing.