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.
Ganymede is the primary scientific target of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, mission. With a diameter of about 5260 km, larger than that of Pluto and Mercury, Ganymede tops the Solar-System moons’ size chart. It is the seventh moon from the gas giant (and the third among the Galilean satellites) and orbits Jupiter at a distance of more than 1 million kilometres. Researchers believe there is tidal heating on Ganymede, although to a much smaller degree than on Io and Europa. This heat could drive some tectonic activity and provide one of the necessary conditions for life to emerge: a source of energy.
This high-resolution mapping of the surface can help constrain the moon’s composition and mineralogy, and assess how habitable Ganymede could be by searching for biosignatures. Observations at various wavelengths will allow astronomers to study non-water-ice material to determine the distribution of biologically essential elements—such as carbon or oxygen—and other important elements—such as magnesium and iron—on the planetary body. The mission will also shed light on the origin and evolution of the materials on the surface by exploring which substances form at Ganymede and which are brought in from the plasma environment around the moon.
To study Ganymede in detail, Juice will enter orbit around it, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer Solar System. The dedicated orbital tour is expected to last about eight months and will be the final stage of the mission.
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When a spacecraft launches on a mission to another planet it must first break free of the Earth’s gravitational field. Once it has done that, it enters interplanetary space, where the dominant force is the gravitational field of the Sun.
The spacecraft begins to follow a curving orbit, around the Sun, which is similar to the orbit of a comet. When this orbit brings it close to its target destination the spacecraft must fire a retrorocket to slow down and allow itself to be captured by the gravitational field of its target. The smaller the target, the more the spacecraft must slow down.
Sometimes passing a planet can result in the spacecraft being accelerated, even without the spacecraft firing any of its thrusters. This is known as the ‘slingshot’ effect. Such ‘gravity assist’ manoeuvres are now a standard part of spaceflight and are used by almost all our interplanetary missions. They take advantage of the fact that the gravitational attraction of the planets can be used to change the trajectory and speed of a spacecraft.
The amount by which the spacecraft speeds up or slows down is determined by whether it is passing behind or in front of the planet as the planet follows its orbit. When the spacecraft leaves the influence of the planet, it follows an orbit on a different course than before.
📹 @EuropeanSpaceAgency
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
