A spacecraft launched last year will slingshot back around Earth and the Moon next month in a high-stakes, world-first manoeuvre as it pinballs its way through the Solar System to Jupiter.
It would be prohibitively heavy to get a probe on an earth-jovian direct trajectory using just propellant.
You’d have to launch 20 missions before JUICE just to get enough fuel into space to get juice to jupiter. And then you also need to think about how you’d perform an orbital insertion at that speed (hint: you can’t) so you’ll need double the rockets for braking fuel.
40 missions for one space probe is not worth it for any science endeavor.
Oh, I never noticed that, I thought they just did a transfer orbit, but yea, in all Jupiter orbiter missions so far they did all of these convoluted gravity assists. I see both Juno and Galileo did it (about 5y travel time).
It would be prohibitively heavy to get a probe on an earth-jovian direct trajectory using just propellant.
You’d have to launch 20 missions before JUICE just to get enough fuel into space to get juice to jupiter. And then you also need to think about how you’d perform an orbital insertion at that speed (hint: you can’t) so you’ll need double the rockets for braking fuel.
40 missions for one space probe is not worth it for any science endeavor.
Oh, I never noticed that, I thought they just did a transfer orbit, but yea, in all Jupiter orbiter missions so far they did all of these convoluted gravity assists. I see both Juno and Galileo did it (about 5y travel time).