Europe's Juice spacecraft encounters radiation en route to Jupiter, but all is well

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Juice spacecraft recently got hit by solar radiation due to a solar flare and associated Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on 9 February. However, everything is fine as the spacecraft is designed to withstand such events.

In a series of tweets, the agency revealed that even though the CME was not directed at Earth or any spacecraft, the Juice spacecraft was magnetically connected to the active region from which the flare and CME originated.

When intense enough, solar flares and CMEs can pose risks to satellites, astronauts, and space missions due to the intense radiation.

"Such events demonstrate how important it is to carry radiation monitors on missions to study particle acceleration & propagation," the agency tweeted.

🪃 #ESAJuice gets hit, but not to worry, nothing our Jupiter-venturing spacecraft can't handle when it comes to radiation ☢️On 9 February, a solar flare was released from the Sun. The flare was accompanied by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), as seen in this video from… pic.twitter.com/RNQh5SGhya

— ESA's Juice mission (@ESA_JUICE) March 8, 2024

The RADiation hard Electron Monitor (RADEM) on #ESAJuice had a front-row seat to this event 😎 🍿🎛️ It registered the highest particle flux and energies since it was switched-on at the end of August 2023.📈 The graph below shows the particles observed by RADEM's detectors… pic.twitter.com/nIfA7dvtjw

— ESA's Juice mission (@ESA_JUICE) March 8, 2024

Juice, short for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, launched from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 launcher on 14 April 2023. The mission aims to explore Jupiter and its giant moons including Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto, which are of great interest due to their potential subsurface oceans.

The mission team is gearing up for the nerve-racking Moon-Earth flyby, known as a Lunar-Earth gravity assist (LEGA), in August this year.