UTAS scientist Guifré Molera Calvés is part of European Space Agency’s mission to Jupiter

A University of Tasmania space scientist is on a mission to uncover the mysterious of the solar system through a spacecraft voyage to Jupiter.

Dr Guifre Molera Calves Photo: UTAS/Peter W. Allen

For more than a decade, Dr Guifré Molera Calvés career has been leading towards working with the European Space Agency on an ambitious mission to Jupiter.

The University of Tasmania space scientist has been tracking and observing ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) through radio telescopes since it launched in April this year.

It all started when Dr Molera Calvés was doing his PhD in 2010. The ESA had launched missions to Mars and Venus and were planning a revolutionary mission to the solar system’s biggest gassy giant.

“The team that I was working with in the Netherlands, we submitted some proposals for one of the instruments that could go on board of the spacecraft,” he said.

The instrument, which is known as Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE), was one of 11 instruments approved to be fitted onboard JUICE, which will study Jupiter and its three of its many moons suspected to have water and potentially life.

TOPSHOT – This photograph taken on April 14, 2023, shows Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket lifting off from its launch pad, at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. – The European Space Agency's JUICE mission to explore Jupiter's icy, ocean-bearing moons will again try to blast off on April 14, 2023, a day after the first launch attempt was called off due to the threat of lightning. (Photo by Jody AMIET / AFP)

Since the spacecraft’s launch in April this year, Dr Molera Calvés has been able to track signals from PRIDE onboard JUICE using radio telescopes owned by UTAS at Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory and others in SA, WA and the NT. He has been observing the spacecraft as it was conducting its near-Earth orbit, collecting data, making sure all the instruments worked and sending back the results to ESA.

“JUICE will take eight years to get to Jupiter. It’s a long journey and it cannot go straight to the Jovian system, instead it needs to get velocity,” he said.

“To get enough velocity to insert on the orbit of Jupiter and then stay there, it has to get exactly the correct velocity, otherwise it will miss it so to do that, JUICE will need to start orbiting around the sun, performing fly-byes to Earth and Venus.”

“That gives us this advantage so that we can use the signal of JUICE, and then try to study and characterise the solar system much better and understand the physics.

This handout image released by NASA on September 21, 2023, shows the planet Jupiter (R) and it's moon Europa (L) as seen through The James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam instrument 2.12 micron filter. (Photo by B. HOLLER and J.STANSBERRY / ESA, NASA, CSA, STScI / AFP)

By the time JUICE reaches Jupiter, it will be about 810 million kilometres from Earth.

Throughout the voyage, Dr Molera Calvés and his UTAS team will be able to use radio telescopes to observe and analyse the data from JUICE over the next few years.

“We can study the atmosphere of the planet, we can do gravity field measurements, we can study space weather or solar winds, all this from Hobart with a spacecraft cruising in the solar system,” he said.

Dr Calves will share some of his work at the Australian Space research Conference at the university of Tasmania this week.

The conference began on Monday and runs until Wednesday.

“There will be great cohort of experts visiting Hobart this week representing institutions and

universities from across the country presenting their knowledge to local scientists and

students,” Dr Calves said.

“It’s an exciting time for space research and exploration and we hope Tasmanian experts will

be at the forefront of this field.”

Business Events Tasmania CEO Marnie Craig said the conference was an example of how business events in the state delivered benefits beyond tourism, bolstering the state’s position with local expertise, research programs, facilities and research collaboration.

“Our research tells us delegates spend $821 a day, stay on average 4.7 nights, 28 per cent

bring at least one other person with them and 89 per cent intend to return within the next

three years,” she said.

The team will analyse data from coronal mass ejections - an eruption of plasma from the sun which is ejected into space and sometimes headed towards Earth. Those solar winds are how the Aurora Australis or Borealis forms, as the plasma interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.

“If it’s too strong, the coronal mass ejections are too strong and will bypass the magnetic field and that’s a problem because then it could cause damage to satellites, to the navigational system, even the power grid,” Dr Molera Calvés said.

“That’s one of the main concerns from the space weather community, knowing when this event will happen and forecasting the impact that can have on Earth.”