Juice’s flyby of Earth-Moon system
ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is set to embark on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter starting April 2023. The mission will investigate the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants and the Jupiter system as an archetype for the numerous giant planets now known to orbit other stars.
On its journey it will make a series of flybys of Earth, the Earth-Moon system and Venus to set it on course for its July 2031 rendezvous in the Jovian system. This video shows Juice performing a flyby of the Earth-Moon system. Known as a Lunar-Earth gravity assist (LEGA), this is a world first: by performing this manoeuvre – a gravity assist flyby of the Moon followed just 1.5 days later by one of Earth – Juice will be able to save a significant amount of propellant on its journey.
Juice will make three Earth flybys during its cruise: one of the Earth-Moon system in August 2024, one of Earth in September 2026, and one of Earth in January 2029.
Watch the full sequence of Juice’s journey to, and tour of, Jupiter and its icy moons.
