ESA's Juice probe dances with Earth and Moon before shooting off to Jupiter

The European Space Agency's Juice probe is to thread the needle this week with a first for a space mission – swings around the Moon and Earth that will result in the spacecraft coming approximately 700 km from the lunar surface. Juice, ESA's mission to study Jupiter's icy moons, launched in April 2023. The probe is due to …

[STOP_FORTH]

Well done boffins!

I continue to be amazed by the convoluted trajectories spacecraft are using to zip around the Solar System to save fuel and increase useful payload.

Another example is Lucy, which will be taking a gander at the Trojans and Greeks in the next few years.

Is it still OK to say boffin on the Reg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well done boffins!

In November 2007 astronomers thought they saw an an asteroid on a very near miss or maybe collision course with earth. Luckily before anyone panicked, it was recognized as the Rosetta probe approaching earth for a gravity assist.

[Bill Gray]

Re: Well done boffins!

Similar issues have arisen with several other returning interplanetary spacecraft (OSIRIS-REx, Hayabusa 2, EPOXI, and probably others I'm not immediately recalling.) Some got pretty far along before their artificial nature was figured out.

On July 5-6, JUICE was imaged by the asteroid defense surveys as a "rock", with about a 10% chance of hitting the earth. Worse, we only saw it because it was glinting off the solar panels, making it look like a pretty big rock (about 50m across). Fortunately, we figured it out quickly, before it became public. Some details here (relevant bits about halfway down the post).

[TReko]

Positive spin?

These fancy trajectories are interesting, but I can't help thinking that launching on a bigger rocket with a decent booster stage would allow a direct to Jupiter trajectory like Pioneer and Voyager used.

Still, I guess it's a trade off and allows more mass for payload. Pity rocket power hasn't improved much since the 1960's.

[Spherical Cow]

Re: Well done boffins!

As far as I'm concerned boffin is still the preferred term for very clever scientists dedicated to their work. It is high praise.

[mtp]

Zooming between the moon and Gotham

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

Troll icon as it is very Joker.

[Pascal Monett]

"On August 20, the spacecraft will do it all again, this time around Earth"

Wait, Juice is rolling around the moon tonight, and be rolling around Earth tomorrow night ?

IIRC, the Apollo missions took three weeks to get to the Moon.

Now that's one heck of a boost !

[Richard Tobin]

Re: "On August 20, the spacecraft will do it all again, this time around Earth"

It took the Apollo missions three days, not three weeks.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: "On August 20, the spacecraft will do it all again, this time around Earth"

Also the Apollo mission wanted to stop by at the Moon, not whizz off towards a gas giant!

[TaabuTheCat]

Pictures!

If you want to be one of the first to see images from the fly-bys follow @[e-mail] on Mastodon (you are on Mastodon, right??!!). He'll be doing the raw image processing and posting images as soon as the data is available.

[Is there anybody out there?]

Re: Pictures!

I am now :)