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Yet they remain the least explored - especially the "ice giants" Uranus and Neptune - due to their distance from Earth, and the extreme conditions spacecraft must survive to enter their atmospheres.
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Our ongoing research looks at how to overcome the harsh entry conditions experienced during giant planet missions.
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Unlike rocky planets, giant planets don't have a surface to land on.Even in their lower atmospheres, they remain gaseous, reaching extremely high pressures that would crush any spacecraft well before it could land on anything solid.
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If we launch during the next convenient launch windows of 2030-34 for Uranus and 2029-30 for Neptune, flight times would vary from 11 to 15 years.
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