ESA’s GOCE spacecraft has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Earth since its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket in April 2023. Now it’s ready to blast off towards Venus.
From the moon to the earth and from the earth to venus. On August 19 and 20, the juice probe You will fly over the earth and the moon. In a braking maneuver never attempted by any space mission before.
It will first reach the Moon, and a day later, Earth. It will do so at the right time, at the right speed and in the right direction until our planet’s gravity deflects it toward Venus, where it will blast off back toward Earth in August 2025.
It can’t fail. Mission operators have already adjusted Joyce’s trajectory for the first braking and are confident of success, but it represents a risky challenge that no other space mission has faced before.
This will be the first close flyby of the Moon and Earth and the first dual gravity assist manoeuvre by a spacecraft. “The slightest error could derail JUICE and end the mission,” the European Space Agency said in a statement. Website enabled To follow the probe’s path.
Nine gravity helps. JUICE is scheduled to pass within 6,861 kilometers of Earth on August 20, 2024, and 5,081 kilometers of Venus on August 31, 2025. It will then make two more close flybys of Earth, in 2026 and 2029, and a three-time flyby of Mars, in 2031. More flybys of Earth, in 2031, 2032 and 2034, and a final flyby of the Jupiter system, its final destination.
These maneuvers, known as “gravity assists,” are necessary to adjust the probe’s trajectory without consuming too much fuel, as the energy needed for acceleration is obtained from the gravitational interaction with the planet.
Juice mission. The probe 27 meter wingspanFeaturing an 85-square-meter solar panel instead of a nuclear-powered RTG, you’ll explore Jupiter’s icy moons. Ganymede will be your primary target.
Aside from the ocean world that could harbor life beneath its icy surface, Jupiter’s largest moon is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field. The Juice probe will explore its magnetic field and how it interacts with Jupiter’s, as well as its ocean, icy surface and rocky core.
It will not be the only destination. In addition to Ganymede, JUICE will explore Europa, which is also thought to have a subterranean ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Finally, the European spacecraft will explore Callisto to unravel the mysteries of Jupiter’s environment millions of years ago.
Image | who
In Chataca | This is what Ganymede sounds like: NASA shares audio clip made from data collected by Juno during flyby of Jupiter’s moon
“Beeraholic. Friend of animals everywhere. Evil web scholar. Zombie maven.”