King Philippe of Belgium took off from Melsbroek air base on Tuesday morning for French Guiana, an overseas French territory in South America where he will attend the launch of the Ariane 5 rocket on Thursday. This will send a satellite into an orbit dedicated to exploring the largest planet in the Solar System – Jupiter.
Juice, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to explore the giant gas planet and its three icy moons. The satellite, which will take seven and a half years to reach its destination 600 million kilometres away, will become the first spacecraft to orbit a planetary moon, other than Earth.
The main objective of the mission – which is in parallel with another NASA mission – is to assess the conditions for life exist on Jupiter and its moons. Juice will spend most of its three years in orbit around Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, but will also allow scientists to analyse Juptier’s outermost moon, Callisto.
A long-standing space enthusiast
On Wednesday, King Philippe will visit the Kourou launch site. He is known to be an astronomy enthusiast and attended the launch of the first Belgian astronaut, Dirk Frimout, from the Kennedy Space Centre in 1992, as well as the return journey of fellow Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne in 2002.
Last year, the King received Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), and Raphaël Liégeois, Belgium’s newest astronaut.
During his visit to French Guiana, the King will be accompanied by the Secretary of State for Science Policy, Thomas Dermine, and will meet with Belgian members of the ESA and representatives of companies involved in the Juice project.
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The launch will take place on Thursday at 09:15 (14:15 in Belgium) and will be the ESA’s last project with Ariane 5. There is a strong possibility that the launch will be delayed due to poor conditions as Météo France currently forecasts thunderstorms for Thursday morning. The King may stay for another 24 hours in Guiana, but no longer.
Belgium is the fifth largest financial contributor to the ESA, with a budget which has recently been upgraded to €305 million for 2023-2027.
