In the early hours of August 31, ESA’s JUICE spacecraft completed a flyby of Venus as part of its long journey to Jupiter’s icy moons. The boxy spacecraft, with cross-shaped solar arrays, is on a mission to study Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa — three Jovian moons suspected of harboring hidden oceans beneath their icy surfaces.
Europa in particular remains a prime candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life. But to reach these distant worlds, JUICE cannot travel in a straight line. Instead, the spacecraft relies on gravitational slingshots from planetary flybys. It has already passed by the moon and Earth before today’s Venus encounter.
During the Venus flyby, operators had to switch off JUICE’s sensors due to the planet’s intense heat. According to ESA, the probe even used its main high-gain antenna as a thermal shield. The closest approach occurred at 1:28 a.m. EST (0528 GMT).
The mission has not been without challenges. In July, JUICE temporarily stopped transmitting telemetry data, but engineers managed to restore full communication after 20 hours of troubleshooting.
Weighing nearly 13,300 pounds (6,000 kilograms), JUICE will next return to Earth for another gravity assist in 2026, followed by one more solar orbit before its final Earth flyby in January 2029. If all goes as planned, JUICE will enter Jupiter’s orbit in July 2031, beginning its historic survey of the gas giant and its potentially life-bearing moons.
