Europe’s JUICE spacecraft recently faced a communication hiccup just days before its important flyby of Venus. Launched in April 2023, JUICE, or Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, is headed to explore Jupiter and its icy moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.
On July 16, mission operators lost contact when a routine check with a deep space antenna in Spain failed. This was a stressful moment for the European Space Agency (ESA). Angela Dietz, the Spacecraft Operations Manager, highlighted that losing communication with a spacecraft can be critical. Engineers quickly worked through the problem, suspecting either an antenna misalignment or an amplifier issue.
Fortunately, after 20 hours and several attempts, they managed to reestablish contact by realigning the medium-gain antenna. The issue turned out to be a glitch in JUICE’s timing software, which controlled its communication systems. This glitch has since been fixed.
With communication restored, preparations for the Venus flyby are back on track. JUICE is now about 125 million miles from Earth, meaning message delays can take up to 22 minutes each way.
The upcoming flyby of Venus is set for 1:28 a.m. EDT on Sunday. During this maneuver, JUICE will gather vital momentum for its next stop in September 2026, when it will loop back around Earth.
The journey to Jupiter will be long. JUICE won’t arrive until July 2031. It’s expected to spend about 2.5 years studying the moons of Jupiter, which are thought to have subsurface oceans—places that could potentially host alien life.
Interestingly, this mission marks the first time any spacecraft will orbit a moon of Jupiter, a significant milestone for space exploration. However, unlike its earlier flyby of Earth, no photos of Venus will be taken during this pass due to thermal constraints; the sensors will be powered down to protect them from heat.
As the mission progresses, more updates from ESA are anticipated to shed light on JUICE’s findings and operations.
For more about this exciting mission, check out ESA’s official statements here.
