Juice flies by the Moon and Earth and heads to Venus
The European Space Agency's spacecraft, which also carries a radar instrument developed under the supervision of the University of Trento, performed a double flyby between the Moon and Earth on its way to Venus. Juice is set to reach Jupiter in 2031
At 23:16 CEST on Monday 19 August, with a rare blue super Moon in the sky, Juice, ESA's spacecraft to Jupiter, approached the Moon to take advantage of its gravity, change direction and point towards Earth. A little more than 24 hours later, at 11:57 on Tuesday 20 August, the spacecraft repeated the manoeuvre by our planet, with an even more decisive turn in the direction of Venus.
This is the first lunar-Earth flyby ever made, a shortcut to Jupiter through the inner Solar System. Thanks to this tricky manoeuvre, the probe not only changed speed and direction, but also saved up to 150 kg of fuel. This will reduce the total mass required for the cruise phase to Jupiter and will help the continuation of the mission.
The double close flyby also provided the occasion to test some of the instruments on board, to collect valuable data on the Moon and Earth, but also to calibrate the instruments in view of their use on Jupiter's moons.
Among the instruments on board Juice is also Rime, the space radar designed by an international team coordinated by Lorenzo Bruzzone of the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (Disi) of the University of Trento.
"The flybys of the Moon and Earth – explains Professor Bruzzone – were very exciting moments because they were the result of a complex and risky manoeuvre. During the flybys, Rime made fundamental measurements to calibrate the instrument and develop the signal analysis techniques that will make it possible to understand the scientific data on the icy moons of Jupiter. The measurements will also help optimize the processing algorithms to reduce the effects of the disturbances generated by the probe on the radar. There is a chance that the processing of lunar and terrestrial data may lead to other important scientific results".
Juice's journey continues towards Venus, where the probe will arrive in August 2025. The spacecraft will then fly close to Earth again in September 2026 and in January 2029 to achieve enough speed to reach the Jovian system. The arrival at Jupiter is scheduled for July 2031.
About the mission
Juice – Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – is the mission launched by the European Space Agency in the outer solar system to explore Jupiter and make detailed observations of its three large icy moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Ten scientific instruments travel on board Juice, three of which have been developed by Italian-led research teams: the Rime radar (coordinated by the University of Trento), the Janus camera, the 3Gm Radio Science experiment. With these instruments, Juice will explore in detail Jupiter's complex magnetic and radiative environment and its interaction with the icy moons and their geology and geophysics, studying the planet's system as an archetype of other giant gas systems in the Universe.
Juice was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from the European spaceport of Kourou (French Guiana) in April 2023. Its journey will last eight years with further flybys of the Earth and Venus.