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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →ESA’s Juice spacecraft completed its third gravity assist on 28 September 2026, using an Earth flyby to bend its Jupiter-bound route by 20° and increase its velocity by 3.5 km/s. At closest approach it passed 8,640 km above the Indian Ocean. This was Juice’s second standalone Earth flyby; ESA counts the 2024 Moon–Earth double encounter as the mission’s first gravity assist.
What changed during Juice’s Earth flyby?
Juice made its closest approach at 13:45 CEST (11:45 UTC) on 28 September 2026, passing 8,640 km above the Indian Ocean. ESA reported that Earth’s gravity deflected the spacecraft’s trajectory by 20° compared with its pre-flyby path and increased its velocity by 3.5 km/s.
Controllers had six opportunities reserved for small trajectory corrections during the approach and needed to use one. Tracking for the encounter began on 17 August and continued through 10 October, according to ESA’s post-flyby report.
Why does Juice need a gravity assist?
A gravity assist uses a planet’s gravity to change a spacecraft’s direction and speed, helping shape its route with little propellant. For Juice, Earth’s flyby redirected the spacecraft toward its next planned Earth encounter, while conserving fuel for the long journey and later work at Jupiter. The flyby was not an Earth-orbit insertion or capture: Juice continued on its cruise to Jupiter.
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ESA’s Angela Dietz, Juice Spacecraft Operations Manager, said the flyby required “ultra-precise navigation in real time” and that the team used only a small amount of the propellant reserved for it. ESA did not quantify that amount.
How this flyby fits into Juice’s gravity-assist sequence
| Encounter | Operational role and next destination |
|---|---|
| August 2024: Moon, then Earth | The combined lunar–Earth maneuver sent Juice toward Venus. ESA described it as a world first in its account of the encounter. |
| August 2025: Venus | A Venus flyby continued the cruise; ESA’s account does not state a separate velocity or trajectory figure for this encounter. |
| September 2026: Earth | The Earth-only flyby bent the route toward Juice’s final planned Earth flyby in January 2029. |
ESA calls the September 2026 event the mission’s third gravity assist in sequence, even though it was only the second standalone Earth flyby. The 2024 encounter involved two bodies in one combined maneuver: the Moon first, then Earth.
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Did Juice collect science data during the flyby?
Although navigation was the primary purpose, the encounter also gave teams a rare chance to test and calibrate instruments against Earth and the Moon as known targets. Juice’s Project Scientist, Claire Vallat, said the journey to Jupiter offers only a few opportunities to validate instruments under well-understood environmental conditions. ESA described this as the third opportunity to test the instruments on a real surface in space: the 2024 lunar–Earth encounter was the first, and observations of comet 3I/ATLAS in 2025 were the second.
Juice also spent several days in Earth’s magnetotail, measuring magnetic fields and charged particles far from Earth. ESA noted complementary observations by the European-Chinese Smile mission near Earth. In ESA’s 28 September report, some images and spectra—including high-resolution Earth and Moon images from the JANUS science camera—had not yet arrived on Earth or been evaluated. The report therefore does not establish their final results.
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What happens next on the Jupiter mission?
Launched in April 2023, Juice is on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter. Its final planned Earth flyby is scheduled for January 2029, and ESA expects arrival at Jupiter in 2031. There, the spacecraft will study Jupiter and its large ocean-bearing moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The mission plan includes 35 flybys of those moons before Juice changes orbit to Ganymede.
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