Juice: why’s it taking sooo long

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Juice: why’s it taking sooo long

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In brief

At their closest point in orbit, Earth and Jupiter are separated by almost 600 million kilometres. At the time of writing, five months after launch, Juice has already travelled 370 million kilometres, yet in time it’s only 5% of the way there. Why is it taking sooo long?

The answer depends on a variety of factors that flight dynamics experts at ESA’s Mission Control know well, from the amount fuel used to the power of the rocket, mass of a spacecraft and geometry of the planets.

Based on this, ESA's flight dynamics experts design a route. The world of orbital mechanics is a counterintuitive place, but with a bit of patience and a lot of planning it allows us to do a great deal of science with just a little fuel, as we’ll explain.

Read More: ESA

 

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