A blue-and-white device that was created especially for an experiment by Weizmann Institute of Science scientists was launched to the planet Jupiter, as part of an international research mission of the European Space Agency
It's not every day that an Israeli product breaks through the borders of the Earth on its way to deep space, but yesterday (April 14) the European Space Agency is expected to launch the spacecraft JUICE from the European Space Base in Guiana, France, with on board advanced blue-white technology developed in a unique collaboration between Weizmann Institute of Science scientists and company engineers AccuBeat Jerusalem, with the support The Israeli Space Agency In the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. This is the European Agency's most ambitious and expensive space mission to date, and it is expected to reach its destination - the planet Jupiter - in 2031, with the aim of studying the structure of Jupiter's atmosphere and looking for signs of life in the oceans that flow beneath the icy surface of its moons.
Members of the space mission from the Weizmann Institute of Science (right to left): Dr. Eli Galanti, Prof. Yohai Caspi and Maria Smirnova
"We have participated in international space missions in the past," says Prof. Yohai Caspi, from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Weizmann Institute, who leads the Israeli JUICE team and is currently staying at the launch site. "But the fact that this mission has an entire section that is Israeli from A to Z - makes the research this time of special significance." Prof. Caspi, and his research partner Dr. Eli Galanti, began working on the project already in 2013, with the announcement of the mission by the European Space Agency. "When I first presented to the Israeli Space Agency the idea of building the device in Israel and doing our own original experiment, it seemed almost imaginary," he says. "But the close collaboration we created between industry and academia allowed this to happen. Now, we have the most accurate device of its kind in the world. In fact, this is also the first device made in Israel that goes outside the system of the Earth and the Moon."
"The Israeli Space Agency is proud to take part in a flagship mission of the European Space Agency, both in the engineering-technological aspect, and in the research aspect. I have no doubt that the research that will be carried out at the Weizmann Institute will be a central component of the mission's research plan, and will continue to advance the field of space research in the State of Israel to the world front," said Uri Oron, director of the Israel Space Agency at the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, on the eve of the launch. "The vast experience and knowledge of AccuBeat made it possible to develop a technology with unprecedented capabilities. We are proud and excited to be part of a historic research project that may lead to sensational discoveries for the world of science and humanity in general," added AccuBeat CEO Benny Levy.
The road to justice is long
In order to gain sufficient speed and put JUICE on the long trajectory to Jupiter - about 800 million kilometers from Earth - the spacecraft is expected to first circle Venus once and our planet three times. In light of the long duration of the space mission - eight years of space travel and then four years of research - the Israeli device, which is known as the Ultra Stable Oscillator and will be used to study the atmosphere of Jupiter and its moons, is required to be exceptionally durable. "This is a tremendous achievement," says Dr. Galanti. "The device was designed to be not only durable, but also light: it weighs only 2 kg - a first-class technological challenge that AccuBeat met with impressive success."
During its stay around Jupiter, the JUICE spacecraft will circle the planet almost 100 times. During each rotation, the oscillator will measure tiny changes in the frequency of a radio beam that will be sent from the spacecraft, through Jupiter's atmosphere, to Earth. In this way, a temperature profile of a certain point on the surface of the planet will be obtained every time, and the scientists will be able to gradually assemble a three-dimensional map of the atmosphere which will allow to improve the understanding of the structure and composition of the largest planet in the solar system. "In order to perform this experiment, the signal must be very precise, so we needed our own dedicated measuring device on the spacecraft," says Maria Smirnova, a research student from Prof. Caspi's group. "To illustrate its degree of accuracy, we can say that if it broadcasts for 100,000 consecutive years - it will deviate by only one second during this period."
The JUICE spacecraft in the vicinity of the planet Jupiter (center). Right: the moons Callisto and Europa, left: Ganymede and Io (yellow) - the volcanic moon of Jupiter that is not included in the core of the mission (image courtesy of ESA)
The institute's scientists will contribute their experience not only to the study of Jupiter's atmosphere but also to another mission of JUICE - the study of the underground oceans of the moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. The JUICE scientific team set out to characterize these oceans after previous measurements revealed that beneath the outer ice layer flow oceans that are perhaps the largest reservoir of water in the solar system. Moreover, the existence of water on the distant moons inevitably raises the question: Is it possible that the moons of Jupiter have conditions that allow life? Prof. Caspi's research group, which specializes in understanding turbulent flow in the atmosphere and the sea, will focus on analyzing the information that will come from the JUICE measurements to characterize the flow in these subsurface oceans.
"When I first presented to the Israeli Space Agency the idea of building the device in Israel and doing our own original experiment, it seemed almost imaginary. The close cooperation we created between the industry and the academy allowed this to happen"
Although JUICE's journey begins now, it will be years before the long-awaited answers to these questions begin to be received. Prof. Caspi's group will indeed use the waiting time to continue planning the experiments and improve the dynamic mapping capabilities of the atmosphere, but it is also difficult for them not to be excited by the very launch. "It's not every day that hundreds of thousands of working hours are drained into a single event," says Prof. Caspi. "Certainly not an event where your device is on a launch pad, when 700 tons of fuel are burned under it."
