Successful software upgrade of IRF-instrument aboard Juice

Scientists and engineers have successfully upgraded the flight software of the Radio & Plasma Wave Investigation (RPWI) instrument aboard the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter mission Juice. The upgrade is an important milestone that better prepares the instrument for the scientific measurements that will be carried out during the exploration of Jupiter and its icy moons.

The upgrade was carried out in July from ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, with support from ESA’s ground station in New Norcia, Australia. As Juice is now far from Earth, it took around ten minutes to receive confirmation of the result of each command, making the entire upgrade a careful and time-consuming process.

Unexpected event confirmed backup system

During the upgrade, the instrument’s backup system was activated unexpectedly. Although this was not planned, it also demonstrated that the instrument’s backup system is functioning as intended.

The unexpected activation gave us additional confirmation that both sides of the instrument are working exactly as they should, says Jan Bergman, scientist in the RPWI team at IRF.

This makes future updates easier

The new software means that future improvements to the instrument can be implemented more quickly and efficiently.

This will become particularly important as Juice travels farther from Earth, when data transmission rates and communication with the spacecraft will decrease.

About Juice

Juice is ESA’s spacecraft for exploring Jupiter and its icy moons. It carries ten scientific instruments, including RPWI, which is led by the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) in Uppsala. The mission is expected to reach Jupiter in 2031.