Science Operations Planning concept for ESA’s Juice mission

ESA’s JUice ICy moons Explorer is an ambitious planetary mission currently bound to the Jovian system.  Juice’s arrival at Jupiter is planned for July 2031 [1]. The mission’s main science objective is to study the potential habitability of Jupiter’s icy moons – Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and characterize the broader Jovian system to understand the conditions past and present that allowed these worlds to be [2,3,4,5].

The mission can be split in two main parts: an orbital tour of about three years around Jupiter with multiple flybys of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and an orbital phase around Ganymede starting around end of 2035 [6].

At this point in the cruise, the planning efforts are focused on the complex multiple target tour phase. Juice’s science ground segment teams – ESA’s Science Operations Center (SOC), the Science Working Team and the Project Scientist – have been developing a science planning strategy to address best the numerous science objectives for different disciplines (e.g. surface science, Jupiter atmosphere, magnetospheric science) within the limited resources of the spacecraft so far from the Earth and Sun.

The foundation of the science planning concept for the Jupiter tour is the segmentation of the trajectory [7]. Based on the Cassini heritage, this activity relies on the analysis of all science opportunities along the tour to subsequently support the decision on selecting a prime scientific objective that will get priority in terms of resources (data volume, power and pointing) for a specific time window (a.k.a segment).

To prepare for nominal science planning, the SOC has been leading yearly detailed scenario planning exercises to plan detailed timelines down to observation and resource analysis level. These exercises have been instrumental in developing the ground segment systems, increasing the understanding of the different instrument objectives and constraints and identify opportunities for joint science campaigns.

In this presentation, we want to describe this approach, break down the different operational challenges we are facing and the tools and strategies we are developing to address them.

References: [1] Grasset et al. (2013) PSS, [2] Tosi et al. (2024) SSR, [3] Van Hoolst et al. (2024) SSR, [4] Fletcher et al. (2024) SSR, [5] Masters et al. (2025) SSR, [6] Boutonnet et al. (2024) SSR, [7] Vallat et al. (2022), EPSC.