The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer's Thrilling Journey and Future Plans

TapTechNews August 21st news, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) of the European Space Agency is performing a thrilling flyby of the 'Moon-Earth', through multiple complex orbital flights, with the goal of reaching Jupiter in 2031.

JUICE Profile

JUICE will orbit Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, and become the first probe to fly around a natural satellite other than the Moon.

JUICE will deeply study Jupiter's complex environment, explore whether there is life, and use the Jupiter system as a model of gas giant planet systems in the universe for research.

The probe is equipped with 3.5 tons of propellant and has a total weight of nearly 6 tons, and its solar sail unfolds to 85 square meters. The detector is equipped with scientific instruments in various aspects such as remote sensing, provided by research teams from France, Germany, Italy and other countries.

The Ganymede Laser Altimeter (GALA) will be used to study the tidal deformation of Ganymede and the topography and geomorphology of other icy satellite surfaces;

The Icy Satellite Exploration Radar (RIME) has the ability to penetrate deep into the ice layer and will be used to study the structure about 9 kilometers deep underground of the icy satellites;

The radio set named 3GM will be used to study the gravitational field of Ganymede, the range of the internal ocean of the icy satellites, and the structure of the neutral atmosphere and ionosphere of Jupiter and its satellites.

JUICE Flight Plan

JUICE was launched into space on April 14, 2023, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana and has since been roughly orbiting the Sun side by side with the Earth. TapTechNews attaches the related video as follows:

JUICE got closest to the Earth at 5:15 am Beijing time on August 20 and passed within a range of 750 kilometers from the moon's surface, slightly decelerating under the so-called gravitational assistance.

Here are the photos taken by the camera JMC1 on JUICE at 5:25 am.

JUICE reached the closest point to the Earth about 6,840 kilometers away at 5:56 am Beijing time on August 21 after about 25 hours of flight.

In this flyby, the Earth will bend JUICE's trajectory in space, by 'braking' and reorienting it in order to fly over Venus in August 2025.

Next, JUICE will accumulate energy again for the flyover of Venus and then two more flyovers of the Earth - which is equivalent to drinking three cups of strong coffee continuously in space exploration.

The ESA adopts this approach mainly because Jupiter is 800 million kilometers away from the Earth. Without a huge rocket, it would be impossible to carry 60,000 kilograms of on-board propellant to send the JUICE directly to this huge planet.

So JUICE takes a circuitous route and uses the gravity of other planets to carefully adjust its trajectory in space to ensure that it arrives at Jupiter at the right speed and direction. In the past 20 years, the dedicated mission analysis team of Juice has carefully planned this extremely complex and constantly changing route.