ESA’s Juice spacecraft completes world’s first lunar-Earth flyby

Europe’s Juice spacecraft has completed the world’s first lunar-Earth flyby. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer — aka Juice — harnessed the gravity of Earth to sling itself in the direction of Venus. The route will provide a shortcut to Jupiter through the inner Solar System. Juice made it closet approach to the Moon at 23:15 CEST on August 19. Gravitational forces then guided the spacecraft towards a closest approach to Earth at 23:56 CEST the next day. The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted the manoeuvre. By harnessing the gravity of both the Moon and Earth, ESA successfully altered the spacecraft’s speed…

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