{"id":774308,"date":"2023-11-21T20:20:55","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T01:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=774308"},"modified":"2023-11-21T20:20:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T01:20:55","slug":"esas-juice-mission-is-approaching-earth-why-has-it-come-home-before-visiting-jupiter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=774308","title":{"rendered":"ESA’s Juice Mission is Approaching Earth. Why Has it Come Home Before Visiting Jupiter?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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JUICE Prepares for a first of its kind double-flyby next year.<\/em><\/p>\n

A Jupiter-bound mission adjusted its course last week\u2026for a rendezvous with Earth. The European Space Agency\u2019s (ESA) Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) fired its thrusters for 43 minutes on Friday, November 17th<\/sup>. This sets the mission up for a first of its kind double-flyby next year on August 23rd<\/sup>, as it passes the Moon and then the Earth to pick up momentum.<\/p>\n

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The mission is the European Agency\u2019s first-ever mission to Jupiter. ESA has some experience with outer solar system exploration with the Huygens Titan explorer and lander, which hitched a ride to the Saturn system with NASA\u2019s Cassini mission.<\/p>\n

A Heavy Mover <\/h2>\n

Weighing in a 6,070 kilograms (spacecraft dry mass, plus fuel and payload adapter), JUICE is one of the heaviest ever planetary exploration missions mass-wise. The course correction was also a crucial test of the main engine in deep space. Now, engineers will assess if JUICE needs another smaller burn in May to tweak its trajectory prior to the Earth-Moon flyby.<\/p>\n

A simulation of Juice\u2019s flyby past the Earth and the Moon next August. Credit: ESOC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis manoeuvre used up roughly 363 kilograms of fuel\u2014or almost exactly 10% of the 3,650 kilograms of fuel that JUICE launched with,\u201d says Julia Schwartz (ESOC Mission Flight Dynamics Engineer) in a recent press release. \u201cIt was the first part of a two-part manoeuvre to put JUICE on the correct trajectory for next summer\u2019s encounter with Earth and the Moon. This first burn did 95% of the work, changing JUICE\u2019s velocity by almost 200 m\/s.\u201d<\/p>\n

JUICE used a thruster burn in the past, to help free its stuck RIME (Radar for Icy Moons Exploration) antenna.<\/p>\n

\"JUICE\"
JUICE\u2019s stuck RIME antenna, with Earth in the background. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why Flybys<\/h2>\n

Planetary flybys are a crucial and efficient way to get spacecraft to their destinations. Instead of carrying the mass of extra fuel, a mission can use the gravity of a massive world to simply gain momentum and sling it towards its target.<\/p>\n

The August 2024 flyby comes 16 months after its April 14th<\/sup>, 2023 launch from the Guiana Space Center. Other missions including Cassini and Juno have used an Earth flyby to pickup speed in the past, but the added bonus of a close inbound lunar flyby is a first. Expect to see some great images from the spacecraft of the Earth-Moon pair, as researchers will likely take the opportunity to use the flyby to calibrate and test instruments aboard the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

JUICE will first pass the Moon, and will then pass the Earth 36 hours later. On Earth flyby, the mission will pass close enough that well-placed observers using binoculars or a telescope may see the mission as a fast-moving \u2018star\u2019. This first-of-its-kind maneuver is known as a \u2018LEGA\u2019 or Lunar-Earth Gravitational Assist.<\/p>\n

\"Osiris-Rex\"
Osiris-REX flies past Earth. Credit Gianluca Masi\/Virtual Telescope Project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Timeline to Jove<\/h2>\n

If this burn was accurate enough, it could put gravity in the driver\u2019s seat. JUICE won\u2019t need to use its engines again until it arrives at Jupiter in 2031. After 2024, JUICE will make a flyby past Venus in 2025, and then two more flybys past the Earth in 2026 and 2029.<\/p>\n

\"Juice\"
A timeline of JUICE\u2019s journey to Jupiter. Credit: ESA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arrival at Jupiter and the Final Fate of JUICE<\/h2>\n

Then comes the biggest test of the spacecraft\u2019s main engine. In 2031, just 13 hours after the spacecraft\u2019s first pass near Ganymede and arrival in the Jovian system, JUICE will need to change velocity by a full one kilometer a second\u2014five times bigger than this month\u2019s change.<\/p>\n

JUICE\u2019s objective is to explore the icy moons of Jupiter: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These moons have only been briefly seen up close during the Voyagers, Cassini, Juno and New Horizons flybys. The enigmatic moons may harbor extensive subsurface oceans, and\u2014just perhaps\u2014chemistry conducive to life. JUICE carries a suite of instruments to probe the moons including the RIME radar sounder, the first ever such instrument to fly to Jupiter. RIME will be able to provide depth and thickness analysis for the ice and oceans of the Jovian moons.<\/p>\n

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New Horizons spies Io and Europa during its Jupiter flyby. Credit: NASA\/APL\/SwRI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Powering JUICE at Jupiter is also challenging, as the Sun is much fainter in the outer solar system. Like NASA\u2019s Juno, JUICE is also solar-powered. The mission has two huge, folding cruciform-shaped solar panels. These will provide 50 watts of energy per square meter at Jupiter. Power efficiency at Jupiter\u2019s distance from the Sun drops to just 3% of that received near the Earth.<\/p>\n

The mission will make 35 flybys past the three moons, before settling into its final orbit around Ganymede in late 2034. JUICE will be joined by NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper Mission, launching late next year and arriving at Jupiter just before JUICE in 2030.<\/p>\n

Watch for JUICE, briefly visiting our homeworld next summer.<\/p>\n

Catch ESA\u2019s JUICE documentary dropping on YouTube on November 23rd<\/em>: <\/p>\n