On Monday 28 September at 1.45pm Paris time, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Juice spacecraft made its closest approach to Earth, at an altitude of 8,640 km above the Indian Ocean. This gravity assist bent its trajectory by 20 degrees and increased its speed by 3.5 km/s, ESA confirmed the same day. Beforehand, the spacecraft had passed through Earth’s shadow running on batteries alone, from 9.24pm on 27 September to 6.03am on 28 September.
Its ten science instruments are observing the Earth and the Moon from 23 September to 3 October. Launched in April 2023, Juice will fly past Earth one last time in January 2029, before reaching Jupiter in July 2031 and then entering orbit around Ganymede in 2034.
Sources
- Agence spatiale européenne (ESA), Successful Earth flyby improves Juice's course to Jupiter, 28 Sept 2026 (primary source)
- Agence spatiale européenne (ESA), Juice to fly past Earth for third gravity assist, 21 Sept 2026 (primary source)
- CNES, Dans son voyage vers Jupiter, Juice fait un nouveau passage à proximité de la Terre, 28 Sept 2026 (primary source)
- GNT (Génération-NT), La sonde Juice s'apprête à frôler la Terre pour un coup d'accélérateur, 27 Sept 2026
Image and video credits
- Juice’s journey to Jupiter: three Earth flybys (August 2024, September 2026, January 2029) and one of Venus before arrival in July 2031.: European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO · source
Corrections
- : Updated: the result of the flyby is now attributed to ESA’s press release of 28 September (20° deflection and 3.5 km/s gain confirmed) rather than to a third-party site, the times of the passage through the shadow are given as absolute dates, French-language sources added (CNES, GNT).
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Method: at least 3 sources including the official one, cross-checked with the help of an AI (Claude), checked and approved by a human on 28 Sept 2026 in the French original; this English version is an AI translation. Our method
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