Exploration of Jupiter

The exploration of Jupiter has to date been conducted via close observations by automated spacecraft. It began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2008, has continued with seven further spacecraft missions. All of these missions were undertaken by NASA, and all save one have been flybys that take detailed observations without the probe landing or entering orbit. These probes make Jupiter the most visited of the Solar System's outer planets as all missions to the outer planets must flyby Jupiter to increase the speed of the probe without needing an excessive amount of fuel that will be both expensive and weigh down the probe. Plans for more missions to the Jovian system are under development, none of which are scheduled to arrive at the planet before 2016. Sending a craft to Jupiter entails many technical difficulties, especially due to the probes' large fuel requirements and the effects of the planet's harsh radiation environment.

The first spacecraft to visit Jupiter was Pioneer 10 in 1973, followed a few months later by Pioneer 11. Aside from taking the first close-up pictures of the planet, the probes discovered its magnetosphere and its largely fluid interior. The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes visited the planet in 1979, and studied its moons and the ring system, discovering the volcanic activity of Io and the presence of water ice on the surface of Europa. Ulysses further studied Jupiter's magnetosphere in 1992 and then again in 2000. The Cassini probe approached the planet in 2000 and took very detailed images of its atmosphere. The New Horizons spacecraft passed by Jupiter in 2007 and made improved measurements of its and its satellites' parameters.

The Galileo spacecraft is the only one to have actually entered an orbit around Jupiter, arriving in 1995 and studying the planet until 2003. During this period Galileo gathered a large amount of information about the Jovian system, making close approaches to all of the four giant Galilean moons and finding evidence for thin atmospheres on three of them, as well as the possibility of liquid water beneath their surfaces. It also discovered a magnetic field around Ganymede. As it approached Jupiter, it also witnessed the impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. In December 1995, it sent an atmospheric probe into the Jovian atmosphere, so far the only craft to do so.

Future probes planned by NASA include the Juno spacecraft, launched in 2011, which will enter a polar orbit around Jupiter to determine whether it possesses a rocky core, and the Europa Jupiter System Mission, due to launch sometime around 2020, which will engage in an extended study of the planet's moon system, particularly Europa and Ganymede, and settle the long-running scientific debate over whether an ocean of liquid water exists under Europa's icy surface. Some NASA administrators have even speculated as to the possibility of manned exploration of Jupiter, but such missions are not considered feasible with current technology.