Scheduled to launch on Thursday, the mission was called off because of lightning in the vicinity of the launch site.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, or Juice, is now scheduled to launch on Friday at 8:14 a.m. ET. aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Weather can often cause launch delays and postponements. Specific weather criteria must be met in order for rockets to safely lift off. The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched aboard an Ariane 5 from the same location in December 2021, also faced similar delays due to adverse weather conditions around Kourou.
ESA will stream the launch live on its website and on its YouTube channel beginning a half-hour before the launch.
The spacecraft will head to space on an Ariane 5 rocket. The same type of rocket launched the James Webb Space Telescope from the European-run launch site in December 2021.
The JUICE spacecraft is wrapped in 500 layered thermal insulation blankets to protect itself against temperatures expected to soar above 250 degrees Celsius (480 degrees Fahrenheit) as it flies past Venus, then plummet below minus 230C near Jupiter.
It has a record 85 square meters of solar panels, which stretch out to the size of a basketball court, to collect as much energy as possible near Jupiter, where sunlight is 25 times weaker than on Earth.
Weighing in at six tons, the European spacecraft carries 10 advanced scientific instruments to study the moons and take images. Jupiter is not the mission’s primary target. Instead, it aims to probe Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, and two other moons, Europa and Callisto.
