Europe’s JUICE Jupiter Probe Zooms previous the Moon in Historic Flyby

Europe’s JUICE Jupiter Probe Zooms previous the Moon in Historic Flyby

By Mike Wall & SPACE.com

Europe’s JUICE Jupiter probe swung by the moon for a “gravity help” on Monday (Aug. 19), and it snapped some pictures to commemorate the historic encounter.

JUICE (brief for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) got here inside a mere 465 miles (750 kilometers) of the lunar floor on Monday night, on the primary leg of an unprecedented gravity-assist doubleheader. The second leg comes on Tuesday night, when the probe flies by Earth.

JUICE chronicled Monday’s lunar encounter with some imagery, which it captured utilizing its two onboard monitoring cameras (which had been designed to verify the deployment of the probe’s photo voltaic arrays and scientific devices).

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And the European House Company (ESA) shared these pictures with the world as they got here right down to Earth, uncooked and unprocessed, by way of a dwell webcast that included commentary from some JUICE staff members.

JUICE launched in April 2023, on a mission to review Jupiter and three of its 4 massive Galilean moons — Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. All three are thought to own oceans of liquid water beneath their icy shells, and Europa’s is probably going in touch with a rocky seafloor, making attainable a wide range of intriguing chemical reactions. (The seas of Ganymede and Callisto could also be sandwiched between layers of ice.)

This week’s moon and Earth flybys are historic; no different mission has ever carried out a double gravity help, in response to ESA. The 2 maneuvers will set the probe on track for the same encounter with Venus in August 2025, which can slingshot JUICE out towards the enormous planet.

“Truly, this flyby is a braking maneuver, so we don’t speed up JUICE, within the sense of gaining velocity relative to the solar,” Ignacio Tanco, JUICE spacecraft operations supervisor, mentioned throughout ESA’s lunar flyby webcast.

“What we discovered is that by following this sequence of first Earth after which Venus, we handle to save lots of about half a 12 months of cruise time and arrive to Jupiter round July 2031,” Tanco added. “This form of counterintuitive method of braking first, in truth, outcomes finally within the shortest attainable cruise part.”

To realize the identical change in velocity achieved by this week’s two flybys by way of engine burns, the JUICE staff would’ve had to make use of just about all of the propellant within the probe’s tanks, Tanco mentioned.

JUICE staff members say the help labored completely. “It was a flawless maneuver! No fine-tuning or correction is required earlier than tonight’s Earth flyby,” ESA Operations posted to X on Aug. 20.

Throughout its Earth flyby on Tuesday, JUICE will come inside a mere 4,250 miles (6,840 km) of Earth. If all goes in response to plan, closest method will happen at 5:57 p.m. EDT (2157 GMT) over the North Pacific Ocean.

Novice astronomers might theoretically see the probe by means of a telescope throughout the encounter, JUICE staff members mentioned — offered they’re in Alaska or another spot in or across the North Pacific.

There will not be one other flyby-photo webcast throughout Tuesday’s flyby, nevertheless. ESA’s Pacific area telemetry-receiving stations are all within the Southern Hemisphere, so the JUICE staff will not be capable to talk with the probe throughout the encounter, staff members mentioned on Monday.

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