ESA's Juice mission: How to watch as spacecraft is launched to Jupiter and its moons

There are now just hours to go until one of Europe's most daring and technologically-advanced space missions is blasted to the stars. JUICE: KEY FACTS Name: JUpiter ICy moons Explorer Weight: 6 tonnes Cost: £1.4 billion Led by: European Space Agency Launch date: 13:15 BST today Journey time: 8.5 years Journey distance: 4.1 billion miles Target: Jovian system Worlds to explore: Jupiter and its icy moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa Date of arrival: July 2031 Number of instruments: 10 Juice will piggyback on an Ariane 5 rocket similar to the one that propelled the James Webb Space Telescope into orbit in December 2021. Juice has cost £1.4 billion to build, a figure which included £9 million in funding from the UK Space Agency After separating from the rocket, Juice will make a 4.1 billion mile trip to the Jovian system over a period of eight-and-a-half years, arriving at Jupiter in July 2031 Task: The satellite, which stands for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, will carry out 35 flybys of the gas giant's three moons before entering a permanent orbit around Ganymede in late 2034 'It's like trying to find lots of needles in a haystack, and those needles are changing shape and colour all the time. Dr Chiaki Crews, research fellow at The Open University, said: 'The Juice mission aims to answer many exciting questions, including whether the ocean worlds beneath the surfaces of Jupiter's icy moons could potentially harbour life. Juice is not equipped to search for signs of life but its aim is to explore the conditions that could support life Tough: The spacecraft has been built to withstand harsh radiation and extreme conditions, ranging from 250C around Venus to minus 230C near Jupiter Preparation: Engineers and mission controllers have a very short launch window to send the spacecraft on its journey 'A large part of our work was to irradiate test sensors with high doses of radiation, just like it is expected to experience during the Juice mission lifetime, to check that Janus will still be able to take images without too much degradation.'