PEP and NIM
The Particle Environment Package (PEP) was selected by ESA to be part of the 11 scientific instruments on JUICE. PEP is a consortium of six science instruments. The University of Bern contributes to PEP with the Neutral and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NIM).
PEP's six instruments are able to measure neutral gas, thermal plasma, positive and negative ions, electrons, and energetic neutral atoms in the energy range from 1 eV to 5 MeV. The PEP instruments are organized into two groups: PEP-Lo and PEP-Hi. PEP-Lo is organised in two units, the Nadir Unit and the Zenith Unit. The University of Bern is responsible for the entire mechanical system engineering and qualification of the PEP-Lo Nadir Unit, which houses NIM and two other instruments. This includes the design and fabrication of the unit's mechanical parts, the assembly and integration of the participating instrument and the verification at system level. The University of Bern also contributed hardware to another PEP instrument (JNA).
The NIM instrument is a highly sensitive mass spectrometer for neutral atmospheric gas and ionospheric ions specifically developed for the tenuous gases of planetary exospheres. It is a time-of-flight mass spectrometer using an ion mirror for performance optimisation. It will be used to measure the chemical composition of the regular atmosphere produced by sublimation, energetic particle bombardment, and photon interaction with the surface of the icy Jovian moons.
GALA
As part of its mission, JUICE will orbit the Jovian moon Ganymede and perform a detailed investigation of it. The Ganymede Laser Altimeter (GALA) on board JUICE will perform topographic mapping and contribute to a large scale geodesy experiment. GALA was developed by DLR (Germany), but its rangefinder system with the associated software was provided by the Planetary Imaging Group of the University of Bern's Space Research and Planetary Science Division (WP). The instrument uses a similar system to BELA (BepiColombo mission), which was developed at the University of Bern.
