Juice was launched into space in April 2024, grazed the Moon on August 19, and then fly over Southeast Asia and the Pacific Oceanat less than seven thousand kilometers above sea level.
The operation consisted of passing close to a celestial body to take advantage of its gravitational attraction, a natural force that allows the spacecraft to deviate its trajectory and modify your speed, accelerating or braking.
The Ariane 5 rocket that launched Juice into space was not powerful enough to propel the probe directly toward the solar system giant, some 800 million kilometers from Earth.
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Numerous space missions have previously used this method, called gravity assistbut the flyby of the Moon combined with that of the Earth was “a world first,” explains the European Special Agency.
The maneuver caused the probe to accelerate slightly as it grazed the Moon before slowing down more sharply near Earth, and then changing direction toward Venus, where it is expected to arrive in 2025.
It will then return to Earth to carry out other operations. Two flybys in 2026 and 2029before finally reaching Jupiter in July 2031.
The mission of the Juice probe proposed by the aforementioned Agency is to observe the icy moons of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto of Jupiter in search of environments conducive to the emergence of extraterrestrial life.
ESA has successfully completed the world’s first ever lunar-Earth flyby, sending #ESAJuice on a shortcut to Jupiter via Venus 👋🛰️
As we wave goodbye to Juice once again, discover how it happened and admire some of our favourite images 👉 pic.twitter.com/tuKsO3Xn2X
— ESA’s Juice mission (@ESA_JUICE) August 21, 2024
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The Moon-Earth maneuver was able to be executed after experts introduced small trajectory corrections during July.
The operation also allowed the probe to test its instruments, which will be used to observe Jupiter’s moons.
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