The JUICE spacecraft could also be seen from South-East Asia throughout an unprecedented manoeuvre
ESA
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft is stopping by residence in what the European House Company (ESA) is asking “a double world first”. It’ll fly previous Earth and the moon on 19 and 20 August, marking the primary of a number of complicated manoeuvres alongside its looping path to Jupiter – and it might be doable to identify the spacecraft within the sky because it hurtles by.
JUICE launched on 14 April 2023, and since then it has been circling the solar roughly alongside Earth. However on 19 August, its journey will begin to get attention-grabbing. It’ll go inside 700 kilometres of the floor of the moon, slowing it down barely in what is named a gravity help. Then, the following day, it’ll dip lower than 7000 kilometres from Earth’s floor, bending its trajectory much more. That’s when it might be doable for eagle-eyed skywatchers in South-East Asia to catch a glimpse of the spacecraft.
All of that is obligatory as a result of if JUICE had been to fly in a straight line to Jupiter, it might want greater than 60,000 kilograms of gas to get there, and much more to decelerate and enter orbit as soon as it arrives. The mass of the whole spacecraft with out gas is 2420 kilograms, so that’s not remotely possible. As a substitute, the upcoming flyby of Earth and the moon will ship the craft in the direction of Venus, the place it’ll begin to pace up, after which it’ll make two extra passes by Earth to achieve simply the correct quantity of pace to get to Jupiter in 2031.
The primary manoeuvre would be the most complex of the whole mission as a result of JUICE should go by way of exactly the precise level in relation to each Earth and the moon to catch a trip to Venus. “It’s like passing through a very narrow corridor, very, very quickly: pushing the accelerator to the maximum when the margin at the side of the road is just millimetres,” mentioned ESA’s Ignacio Tanco in a assertion. A double-flyby of Earth and the moon has by no means been tried earlier than, nor has any double gravity help.
If all goes effectively, JUICE gained’t simply be on its solution to Venus after which Jupiter – it’ll additionally carry out the primary actual exams of its scientific devices. For a few of them, that is the one likelihood they are going to get to iron out any kinks whereas observing a planetary floor earlier than the spacecraft arrives in orbit round Jupiter and begins its mission there: trying to find hints that the large world’s moons may host life.
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