The first spacecraft to use gravity assist was NASA\u2019s Mariner 10 in 1974. It used a gravity assist from Venus to reach Mercury. Now, the gravity assist maneuver is a crucial part of modern space travel. <\/p>\n
The latest spacecraft to use gravity assist is the ESA\u2019s JUICE spacecraft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The European Space Agency (ESA) launched its JUICE spacecraft on April 14, 2023. Its eventual destination is the Jovian system and its icy moons, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede. But it\u2019s a long journey, and the spacecraft took a shortcut by travelling close to Earth and the Moon and using their gravity to gain momentum and change trajectory.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the first spacecraft ever to use the Earth and the Moon for a gravitational slingshot, and it captured some images to share with us. <\/p>\n JUICE stands for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, and it\u2019s on a mission to study three moons with suspected oceans buried under layers of ice. It\u2019s got a long way to go, and on long-duration missions, economical use of propellant is critical. This Earth-lunar slingshot maneuver is all about saving propellant. <\/p>\n \u201cThe gravity assist flyby was flawless, everything went without a hitch, and we were thrilled to see Juice coming back so close to Earth,\u201d says Ignacio Tanco, Spacecraft Operations Manager for the mission.<\/p>\n At its closest approach to Earth, JUICE passed overhead of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean at only 6840 km (4250 miles) altitude. It was a risky maneuver but one that saved the mission between 100 and 150 kg of propellant. <\/p>\n This lunar-Earth flyby isn\u2019t JUICE\u2019s only gravity-assist maneuver. Next August, it will slingshot past Venus, and on September 26th and January 2029, it will slingshot past Earth. All these gravity-assist maneuvers will give JUICE momentum for its journey to Jupiter. JUICE will reach Jupiter in 2031, and because of all of these maneuvers it will have more propellant left when it gets there. <\/p>\n \u201cThanks to very precise navigation by ESA\u2019s Flight Dynamics team, we managed to use only a tiny fraction of the propellant reserved for this flyby. This will add to the margins we keep for a rainy day, or to extend the science mission once we get to Jupiter,\u201d said Ignacio Tanco, Spacecraft Operations Manager for the JUICE mission. <\/p>\n Modern orbiters bristle with science instruments, antennae, and cameras. JUICE is no exception. Among all its instruments and science cameras, it carries two monitoring cameras called JMCs, or JUICE Monitoring Cameras. They\u2019re 1024\u00d71024 pixel cameras with different fields of view. Their job is to monitor the spacecraft\u2019s booms and antennae, and their job was especially critical when they were deployed after launch. <\/p>\n During the flyby, JUICE used its JMCs to capture images of the Earth and the Moon. <\/p>\n It also used eight of its ten instruments to collect scientific data from Earth and all ten for the Moon. <\/p>\n \u201cThe timing and location of this double flyby allows us to thoroughly study the behaviour of Juice\u2019s instruments,\u201d explains Claire Vallat, Juice Operations Scientist.<\/p>\n JUICE\u2019s main science camera is JANUS, a high-resolution optical camera. Its role is to capture detailed images of the surface of Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. The JUICE team used JANUS to capture more than 400 preliminary views of the Earth and the Moon. <\/p>\n \u201cAfter more than 12 years of work to propose, build and verify the instrument, this is the first opportunity to see first-hand data similar to those we will acquire in the Jupiter system starting in 2031,\u201d says Pasquale Palumbo, a researcher at INAF in Rome and principal investigator of the team that designed, tested and calibrated the Janus camera. <\/p>\n \u201cEven though the flyby was planned exclusively to facilitate the interplanetary journey to Jupiter, all the instruments on board the probe took advantage of the passage near the Moon and Earth to acquire data, test operations and processing techniques with the advantage of already knowing what we were observing,\u201d said Palumbo.<\/p>\n These early-mission images are whetting our appetite for when the real fun starts in seven years. JUICE will reach the Jovian system in July 2031 and will do 35 flybys of the gas giant\u2019s icy moons. Then, in December 2034, it will enter orbit around Ganymede. <\/p>\n There is growing evidence that Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto have warm, salty oceans buried under thick layers of ice. These are prime targets in our search for life. But, maddeningly, we don\u2019t know for sure if they could support life or even if the oceans are real. <\/p>\n Hopefully, JUICE can tell us. But it can\u2019t do that without these risky, early-mission maneuvers. <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/A_guide_to_Juice_s_monitoring_cameras_pillars-1024x576.jpg\")
![\"JUICE](\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Earth_ahead.jpg\")
ESA\/Juice\/JMC. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Simeon Schmau\u00df & Mark McCaughrean. LICENCE: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"JMC](\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Juice_snaps_Moon_en_route_to_Earth.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Juice_JANUS_view_of_the_Moon_pillars-770x1024.jpg\")
![\"Earth](\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Juice_JANUS_view_of_Earth_pillars-770x1024.jpg\")
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