Premiere at Esa – “Juice” flies around the Earth and the moon
Published: Wednesday, Aug 7th 2024, 07:50
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The experts at the space agency Esa have never flown a maneuver like this before: An Esa probe returns to its home planet in search of traces of life on Jupiter.
The Jupiter probe "Juice" will return to Earth and the moon in a few days on its hundreds of millions of kilometers long journey to the largest planet in our solar system. According to the European Space Agency Esa, which controls the satellite from the control center in the German city of Darmstadt, the flyby as a braking maneuver around the moon and Earth is a first.
When asked by the German news agency DPA, the head of the control center, Simon Plum, spoke of "a daring and precise manoeuvre". Esa describes it as a risky challenge that no other space mission had ever planned. "The slightest mistake could throw "Juice" off course and result in the end of the mission," it said in a statement.
Important maneuvers to stay on course
Launched in April last year, the "Juice" (Jupiter icy moons Explorer) probe will first fly around the Earth's satellite at an altitude of around 12,000 kilometers from the lunar surface on August 19 at 11.28 p.m. (CEST) and then around the Earth the following day at 11.57 p.m. (CEST) at an altitude of around 19,000 kilometers.
It will then set course for Venus and later return to Earth twice more before making its way into the outer solar system to Jupiter and its icy moons. The maneuvers are important so that the probe can later fly precisely to its positions on Jupiter's moons.
Opportunity for science
The flybys of the Moon and Earth also offer other opportunities for science. "The Juice flyby of Earth and the moon offers scientific teams a first-class test environment to collect and analyze data from a real surface in space for the first time," said Plum. The mission to the gas giant Jupiter is expected to last from 2031 to 2035.
Searching for traces of life
After years of travel, "Juice", with its ten instruments on board, will take a close look at Jupiter's moons "Europa", "Callisto" and "Ganymede" from 2031. Experts assume that there is water under a kilometer-thick layer of ice on the three moons - and therefore also possible conditions for life.
A measuring device for the "Juice" mission was developed and built at the Institute of Physics at the University of Bern. "Everything went according to plan right from the start," said the director of the institute, Peter Wurz, to the Keystone-SDA news agency one year after the mission was launched. From Switzerland, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) are also involved.
"Juice" was launched into space on board an Ariane 5 rocket from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on April 14, 2023.
©Keystone/SDA
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