Juice is coming home! 🛰️🌎🌚 #shorts

0
(0)

On 17 November 2023, our Juice spacecraft carried out one of the largest and most important manoeuvres in its eight-year journey to Jupiter.

Why does it take so long? Well, the short answer is that its less to do with the distance between Earth and Jupiter and more to do with fighting the Sun’s massive gravitational pull as you venture to the outer Solar System.

If spacecraft like Juice had to carry all the fuel needed to battle the Sun’s gravity alone, they’d be nothing more than colossal tanks. Instead, they use ‘gravity-assist’ tricks – they swing by planets to receive a boost on the way.

Using its main engine, Juice changed its orbit around the Sun to put itself on the correct trajectory for next summer’s Earth-Moon double gravity assist – the first of its kind.

The manoeuvre lasted 43 minutes and burned almost 10% of the spacecraft’s entire fuel reserve. It’s the first part of a two-part manoeuvre that could mark the final time that Juice’s main engine is used until its arrival in the Jupiter system in 2031.

📹 ESA – European Space Agency

#ESA
#JuiceMission
#Jupiter

Similar Posts:

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

As you found this post useful...

Follow us on social media!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

10 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *