For the last month you may have noticed we have been acting a bit weird. We said we were going to go straight to 1.1 with the propellers and more contracts, but we got a bit sidetracked... Today we can finally talk about it, a collaboration with the European Space Agency!
We have been in talks with ESA to include JUICE in the game. The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer is the first European mission to visit a Gas Giant. It will launch tomorrow, April 13th, from Kourou, French Guiana, on top of an Ariane V, heading towards the moons of Jupiter after an insane chain of Gravity Assist.
To commemorate this launch we have added a new Sandbox Challenge to the game, where you'll be in charge of getting JUICE to visit all moons of Tydos with the least possible Delta-V. In order to better support this mission we have added new properties to the solar panel arrays, such as a new hinge with a custom deployment animation to match the ones in JUICE and the ability to override through the hidden properties how many panels are in each row. Also taking the opportunity to flesh out some issues that the arrays had before.
We have put a lot of focus on improving the Map View experience, with an overhaul of the Planned Burns, Closest Approach calculations, clarity improvements and a ton of bug fixes to ensure a smooth experience when visiting other worlds.
Thanks a lot to ESA for wanting to be a part of Juno: New Origins and bring this amazing mission to the game. All the new features are not just available for the challenge, so you will be able to enjoy the new solar panels and improved Map View in your own careers and sandboxes.
If you want to learn more about JUICE, here are some useful links: