- European scientists successfully attempted a groundbreaking double slingshot manoeuvre, guiding the European Space Agency’s (ESA)Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) toward Jupiter.
- Launched in April 2023, JUICE returned to Earth to utilize its gravity as a braking effect, enabling a shortcut to Venus and then onward to Jupiter.
- The “gravity assist” method to gain energy by swinging through the strong gravitational fields of various planets on the way, involves leveraging a planet’s or moon’s gravity to adjust speed and trajectory.
- This week’s lunar-Earth fly-by marked the first attempt to execute two such manoeuvres consecutively.
- After this lunar-Earth double flyby of 2024 (LEGA), Juice will first make one flyby of Venus in 2025 and two further flybys of Earth in 2026 and 2029.
- It will enter Jupiter’s orbit in 2031.
| ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) • Following NASA’s 1990s Galileo mission, the JUICE mission will orbit Jupiter. • It will make detailed observations of the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments. • The mission will characterise these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats and explore Jupiter’s complex environment. • Juice is one of the heaviest interplanetary spacecrafts ever launched, with a total mass of around 6000 kg. |
Dig Deeper: Read about important probes and missions of ESA, NASA and JAXA.
