European space scientists will this week attempt one of the most daring operations ever undertaken in interplanetary flight. On Wednesday, they will direct their Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) to make a flyby of Earth and its moon and carry out the first double gravity-assist manoeuvre in space.
The delicate, high-risk exercise is vital to the success of the European Space Agency (Esa) mission and is aimed at taking the €1.6bn (£1.4bn) robot craft to its target, Jupiter, by July 2031. There it will begin exploration of two of the giant planet’s moons, Europa and Ganymede, in a bid to find signs of life that may lurk in their ice-covered oceans.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/aug/11/robot-craft-jupiter-probe-solar-system-european-scientists-space
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> “It is going to be very exciting and a bit hair-raising,” added Bunce. “Nevertheless, this manoeuvre is going to be vital to the mission. The more precisely it is carried out, the less fuel we will need to use to make future course corrections and we will have more to use to explore Jupiter and its moons.”
Note that it’s not all or nothing. The better they do at their accuracy, the better it is for the mission’s longevity.