Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory met a significant milestone recently by delivering key elements of an ice-penetrating radar instrument for an ESA (European Space Agency) mission to explore Jupiter and its three large icy moons.

While following the laboratory’s stringent COVID-19 Safe-at-Work precautions, JPL teams managed to build and ship the receiver, transmitter, and electronics necessary to complete the radar instrument for the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission.

Set to launch in 2022, JUICE will orbit Jupiter for three years, perform multiple flybys of moons Callisto and Europa, then orbit Ganymede. The spacecraft will observe Jupiter’s atmosphere up close as well as analyze the surfaces and interiors of the three moons, which are believed to harbor liquid water