All articles tagged with #gravity assist
ESA's Juice spacecraft executed a successful gravity assist near Earth on September 28, 2026, increasing its speed by 3.5 km/s and altering its trajectory by 20 degrees. This maneuver, which required minimal fuel, is a critical step in its journey to study Jupiter's icy moons, with a final Earth pass scheduled for 2029 and Jupiter arrival in 2031.
ESA's Juice spacecraft used Earth's gravity to boost its speed by 3.5 km/s and alter its course by 20 degrees on September 28, 2026. This maneuver, which required minimal fuel, is a critical step in its journey to study Jupiter's icy moons. The flyby also allowed scientists to test instruments and capture images of Earth.
The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) successfully completed its third gravity-assist flyby of Earth on September 28, 2026. The maneuver increased the spacecraft’s velocity by 3.5 kilometers per second and deflected its trajectory by 20 degrees, using minimal fuel. This boost is critical for JUICE’s journey to Jupiter, where it will study the icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa for signs of life. The spacecraft will make a final Earth pass in 2029 before arriving at Jupiter in 2031.
The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) executed its third Earth flyby on September 28, 2026, gaining speed without fuel. This maneuver adjusts its trajectory for a final Earth pass in 2029 and arrival at Jupiter in 2031. The probe will study Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa for signs of life.
In 1961, UCLA graduate student Michael Minovitch, working at JPL, used an IBM 7090 to simulate thousands of trajectories and, by analyzing the encounter from the planet’s frame, discovered gravity assist: a spacecraft can gain speed by borrowing a planet’s orbital motion without using fuel. This insight, demonstrated on a room-sized computer, enabled outer‑solar‑system missions like Pioneer 10/11 and later Voyager to reach distant planets with far less propellant. Although Minovitch fought for proper credit, gravity assist became a cornerstone of spaceflight, illustrating how a planet’s motion can transfer energy to a passing spacecraft during a flyby.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 was timed to a rare 176-year planetary alignment that let it visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune via gravity assists—carrying no propellant for the long legs and extending its life to study all four giants. The route, planned by JPL using gravity‑assist principles, remains the only mission to visit Uranus and Neptune, with the next comparable window not expected until the 2150s. Gravity assists continue to enable modern missions, while each encounter shaped what we know about the outer planets.
Mercury’s strong solar gravity makes orbital capture energy-intensive; a direct trip to Mercury would require enormous propellant, so BepiColombo used an eight-year path of gravity assists (nine flybys across Earth, Venus and Mercury) plus solar-electric propulsion to gradually shed energy and enable Mercury orbit insertion in November 2026. After arrival, two science orbiters will study Mercury’s environment, showing that stopping in the inner Solar System can be harder than simply getting there.
After a 12-year, 7.13-billion-km journey, Voyager 2 arrived at Neptune within 100 km of its planned point—a margin NASA likens to a golf-putt 3,630 km long—thanks to gravity assists and precise tracking; the flyby passed 29,240 km from Neptune’s centre and about 4,950 km above its north pole, and revealed six new moons, four rings, and Triton’s geysers, making it the only close Neptune visit to date and fueling discussion of future ice-giant missions.
NASA’s Europa Clipper, launched in 2024, is on a 1.8-billion-mile journey to Jupiter to perform 49 close flybys of the icy moon Europa in order to study its suspected subsurface ocean and assess habitability. The mission won’t drill or directly detect life; instead it will use ice-penetrating radar, a magnetometer, cameras and other instruments to map the ice shell, estimate ocean depth and salinity, and search for potential plumes, guiding future life-detection missions. The voyage relies on gravity assists from Mars and Earth to reach Jupiter by 2030, with a broad science campaign beginning after arrival in 2031.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars at about 2,800 miles on May 15, calibrating its sensors, imaging Mars, and stealing a small amount of Mars’ orbital energy to gain roughly 1,000 mph in speed and shift its orbital plane, setting the stage for a 2029 rendezvous with the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft flew within about 4,600 km (2,800 miles) of Mars on May 15, 2026, using the Red Planet as a gravity assist to boost speed and tilt its trajectory toward the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche in the asteroid belt; the flyby produced striking Mars imagery and a trippy timelapse while the mission—launched in 2023—continues toward its August 2029 rendezvous with Psyche and a suite of sensors to study its composition, gravity, and magnetic field.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft used a May 15, 2026 Mars flyby to gain a gravity-assisted boost toward asteroid Psyche, approaching Mars within about 2,864 miles and gaining roughly 1,000 mph on its way to a 2029 rendezvous; a new timelapse video stitched from four May images shows Mars’ crescent to cratered disk as Psyche’s gamma-ray/neutron spectrometer, magnetometer and multispectral cameras were calibrated for the mission’s upcoming encounter.
NASA's Psyche spacecraft used a Mars gravity assist during a May flyby to accelerate on its six-year, 2.2-billion-mile journey to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which it is expected to reach by 2029 to study Earth's core. NASA released new Mars images from about 2,800 miles above the surface, along with a timelapse video of the encounter.
NASA's Psyche spacecraft, on its six‑year journey to the metal asteroid Psyche, performed a May 2026 gravity assist by flying about 2,800 miles from Mars and captured striking, enhanced‑color images of the Red Planet. The resulting mosaics and close views reveal Mars’ craters and southern highlands in a perspective rarely seen in spacecraft photos. The flyby also provided a speed boost to Psyche's trajectory toward its main target, with arrival at the asteroid planned for 2029 after the 2.2‑billion‑mile voyage launched in October 2023.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft released a video and images from its May 15, 2026 Mars flyby, using the opportunity to test its science payload while a gravity assist keeps it on track toward asteroid 16 Psyche, slated for 2029. The flyby yielded detailed views of Mars—from a crescent phase to craters and the south polar ice cap—and even helped spot Phobos and Deimos. Instruments including a multispectral imager, magnetometer, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer operated as designed, providing calibration data and Mars science signals (including a bow-shock magnetic signature) to validate readiness for the asteroid rendezvous.