European Jupiter probe JUICE passes by the Moon in historic flyby

European Jupiter probe JUICE passes by the Moon in historic flyby

Mike Wall &SPACE.com

Europe’s Jupiter probe, JUICE, made a “gravity assist” pass by the moon on Monday (August 19), taking several photos to commemorate the historic encounter.

juice (short for Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) came within just 465 miles (750 kilometers) of the moon’s surface on Monday evening as part of the first stage of an unprecedented gravity-assist double-header. The second stage will take place on Tuesday evening as the probe flies closer to Earth.

JUICE documented Monday’s approach to the lunar surface with images taken by two onboard surveillance cameras designed to monitor the deployment of the spacecraft’s solar panels and science instruments.

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and European Space Agency (ESA) shared these raw photos with the world upon landing on Earth in a live webcast with commentary from members of the JUICE team.

JUICE will be launched in April 2023. Jupiter And the four big Galileo satellites — Ganymede, Callisto, EuropeAll three moons are thought to have oceans of liquid water beneath their icy shells, and Europa’s ocean is likely in contact with a rocky ocean floor, which could lead to a variety of interesting chemical reactions. (The oceans of Ganymede and Callisto may be sandwiched between layers of ice.)

This week’s Moon-Earth flyby is historic: No other mission has ever used a double gravity assist before. According to the ESAThese two maneuvers will set the spacecraft on a course for a similar encounter. Venus JUICE is scheduled to be launched toward the giant planet in August 2025.

“In fact, this flyby is a braking maneuver, so we are not accelerating JUICE in the sense of increasing its relative speed. solar“We’re excited to be working with the JUICE spacecraft on our next mission,” Ignacio Tanco, JUICE spacecraft operations manager, said during ESA’s lunar flyby webcast.

“We find that by going Earth first, then Venus, we can save about half a year of cruise time and reach Jupiter around July 2031,” Tanko added. “This counterintuitive approach of braking first actually results in the shortest cruise phase.”

Tanko said the JUICE team would have had to use nearly all of the propellant in the spacecraft’s tanks to achieve the same speed changes achieved by engine burns during this week’s two flybys.

JUICE team members said the assist worked flawlessly: “It was a flawless operation! No fine-tuning or corrections were required prior to tonight’s Earth flyby,” ESA Operations of America said. Post to X August 20th.

Tuesday’s Earth flyby will bring JUICE to within just 4,250 miles (6,840 km) of the planet. If all goes as planned, closest approach will occur over the North Pacific Ocean at 5:57 p.m. EDT (21:57 p.m. GMT).

Amateur astronomers could theoretically be able to view the probe through a telescope during the encounter, as long as they were somewhere in or near Alaska or the North Pacific Ocean, according to members of the JUICE team.

Tuesday’s flyby, however, will not feature a webcast of flyby photos: All of ESA’s Pacific-area telemetry receiving stations are in the Southern Hemisphere, so the JUICE team will not be able to communicate with the spacecraft during the flyby, team members said Monday.

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