FUTURE PLANS FOR JUPITER

While Jupiter has been heavily photographed by missions such as Juno, which arrived at the planet in 2016, much scientific interest has now transferred to the planet’s moons, which are thought to harbour subsurface liquid oceans and possibly even life. Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, three of the Galilean moons, would be the targets, but multiple missions have been cancelled due to lack of budget.

In 2024 NASA’s Europa Clipper should launch, following up on studies from the Galileo probe and performing multiple flybys of Europa without orbiting it, using the gravity of nearby moons to change its course. The European Space Agency will send its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer in April 2023 to study Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, evaluating their potential to support life. Other countries also have their eyes on the giant planet, with China’s Gan De craft proposed for launch in 2029 and an unnamed Russian proposal to use a nuclear-powered tug to travel to the planet sometime after 2030.

Further into the future, Europa is seen as a potential site for human colonisation of the Solar System, as it is geologically stable and levels of radiation are low there. Low is a relative term, however, as unshielded colonists would receive 5.4 sieverts of radiation per day from Jupiter compared to 0.0024 sieverts per year on Earth. This is still enough to cause radiation poisoning.