2024-08-19 08:24:05
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft will fly by the moon and Earth on Monday night to use their gravity as a natural brake, push back and head back to Jupiter along Venus, BTA reported.
The mission began in April 2023. The journey to Jupiter will take more than eight years.
“Such a double flyby of the Moon and Earth has never been done before,” said Dr Caroline Harper of the British Space Agency. “It is a complex maneuver requiring incredibly precise real-time navigation by flight controllers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and even a small mistake can throw “Juice” off course. But it will be worth it.”
The maneuver saves a huge amount of fuel, which means that when Juice arrives at its destination, it will be able to make many more scientific observations.
Juice is equipped with 10 scientific instruments that will investigate whether the gas giant’s three moons, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, can support life in their oceans.
If the maneuver is successful, Juice will fly past Venus in August 2025.
The complex route has been calculated very carefully. The risky maneuvers are necessary because Jupiter is an average of 800 million kilometers from Earth.