JUICE flies past Earth on September 29 — a fuel-free speed boost on the long road to Jupiter
At the end of this month a Jupiter-bound spacecraft is going to thread past Earth to steal a tank of speed it can’t buy any other way. On 29 September 2026, ESA’s JUICE — the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer — makes its second solo flyby of our planet, a gravity assist that borrows a sliver of Earth’s own motion around the Sun and hands it to the spacecraft for free. No engine burn does the heavy lifting here. Geometry does. ...