Europe's JUICE Jupiter probe zooms by the moon in historic flyby (photos)

[Admin]

Europe's JUICE Jupiter probe swung by the moon for a "gravity assist" on Monday (Aug. 19), and it snapped photos to commemorate the historic encounter.

Europe's JUICE Jupiter probe zooms by the moon in historic flyby (photos) : Read more

 

[Galumph]

Europe's JUICE Jupiter probe swung by the moon for a "gravity assist" on Monday (Aug. 19), and it snapped photos to commemorate the historic encounter.

Europe's JUICE Jupiter probe zooms by the moon in historic flyby (photos) : Read more

This is a minor correction, but the article states that no other mission has done a double gravity assist--but that isn't true. The comment from ESA was with respect to using both the Earth and the Moon for gravity assists in a single mission. The Parker Solar Probe conducted 7 gravity assists--so there isn't anything inherently historic about the quantity of assists alone.

 

[Rob77]

This is a minor correction, but the article states that no other mission has done a double gravity assist--but that isn't true. The comment from ESA was with respect to using both the Earth and the Moon for gravity assists in a single mission. The Parker Solar Probe conducted 7 gravity assists--so there isn't anything inherently historic about the quantity of assists alone.

I saw an illustration somewhere showing the orbit for JUICE and it seemed to do a few laps around the sun following along with the earths orbit, then goes out to Venus, then back to Earth / Moon - was hard to get my head around but I think they mean a double assist as in using the same planet twice - perhaps?