WATCH: JUICE's Journey to Jupiter
If you read the recent news about ESA's JUICE mission (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer), you may be interested in how exactly we'll get there. Gravity assists play a critical part in helping direct our missions, and are fascinating to learn about:
From ESA:
This animation shows the journey of the JUICE spacecraft to Jupiter. The proposed trajectory of JUICE is traced as a white line beginning inside Earth's orbit (shown in blue). By following the trajectory, it is possible to appreciate the gravity-assist strategy—a sequence of flybys of Earth, Venus, Earth, Mars, and again Earth—that is used during the 88-month cruise phase of the mission.
The scenario foreseen for a June 2022 launch of JUICE on an Ariane 5, from Kourou in French Guiana, is as follows:
The first Earth flyby will be at a distance of 12 700 km in May 2023;
JUICE will fly past Venus at a distance of 9500 km in October 2023;
the next Earth flyby will be the closest, at 1950 km in September 2024;
then JUICE will fly past Mars at a distance of 1100 km in February 2025;
before the final flyby, which will be 3700 km from Earth in November 2026.
Copyright: ESA
