First tests of the MAJIS Engineering Model with the JUICE satellite

« Hello, JUICE ? - Hi MAJIS, nice to meet you ! Let’s have fun ! ;-) »: This is the first message that ADS (Airbus Defense and Space), prime contractor of the ESA JUICE satellite, sent to the MAJIS (Moons And Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer) team, hence validating the EM (Engineering Model) stage of the MAJIS spacecraft.

One week of tests was indeed recently conducted at ADS in Toulouse (Intespace) as part of an Airbus / ESA / IAS collaborative week, enabling the electronic communication between the visible and near-infrared spectro-imager MAJIS and the JUICE mission satellite. The main software functionalities of MAJIS have been also tested and validated.

Numerous activities are forthcoming with the objective to deliver the flight model in early 2021. IAS, in close collaboration with its Italian partners (ASI, LDO), has the scientific and technical responsibility of the MAJIS instrument, with CNES support for expertise and funding. The entire MAJIS team at IAS, about thirty people, continues therefore to be mobilized to deliver the instrument on time.

JUICE - JUpiter ICy moons Explorer - is the first L-class mission of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. The launch is scheduled in 2022 from Kourou with an Ariane 5, for an arrival at Jupiter in 2030. JUICE will perform detailed investigations of Jupiter and its system in all their inter-relations and complexity, with particular emphasis on Ganymede as a planetary body and potential habitat. Investigations of Europa and Callisto would complete a comparative picture of the Galilean moons.

Contacts at IAS : Cydalise Dumesnil, Karin Dassas, Vincent Carlier