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Juice arrives at ESA’s technical heart
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Dr. Rainee Simons (right) and Dr. Félix Miranda work together to create technology supporting heart health at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.Credit: NASA Prioritizing health is important on Earth, and it’s even more important in space. Exploring beyond the Earth’s surface exposes humans to conditions that can impact blood pressure, bone density, immune health, and much more. With this in mind, two NASA inventors joined forces 20 years ago to create a way to someday monitor astronaut heart health on long-duration spaceflight missions. This technology is now being used to monitor the health of patients with heart failure on Earth through a commercial product that is slated to launch in late 2024.
NASA inventors Dr. Rainee Simons, senior microwave communications engineer, and Dr. Félix Miranda, deputy chief of the Communications and Intelligent Systems Division, applied their expertise in radio frequency integrated circuits and antennas to create a miniature implantable sensor system to keep track of astronaut health in space. The technology, which was created at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland with seed funds from the agency’s Technology Transfer Office, consists of a small bio-implanted sensor that can transmit a person’s health status from a sensor to a handheld device. The sensor is battery-less and wireless.
“You’re able to insert the sensor and bring it up to the heart or the aorta like a stent – the same process as in a stent implant,” Simons said. “No major surgery is needed for implantation, and operating the external handheld device, by the patient, is simple and easy.”
After Glenn patented the invention, Dr. Anthony Nunez, a heart surgeon, and Harry Rowland, a mechanical engineer, licensed the technology and founded a digital health medical technology company in 2007 called Endotronix, now an Edwards Lifesciences company. The company focuses on enabling proactive heart failure management with data-driven patient-to-physician solutions that detect dangers, based on the Glenn technology. The Endotronix primary monitoring system is called the Cordella Pulmonary Artery (PA) Sensor System. Dr. Nunez became aware of the technology while reading a technical journal that featured the concept, and he saw parallels that could be used in the medical technology industry.
The concept has proven to be an aid for heart failure management through several clinical trials, and patients have experienced improvements in their quality of life. Based on the outcome of Endotronix’s clinical testing to demonstrate safety and effectiveness, in June 2024 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted premarket approval to the Cordella PA Sensor System. The system is meant to help clinicians remotely assess, treat, and manage heart failure in patients at home with the goal of reducing hospitalizations.
“If you look at the statistics of how many people have congestive heart failure, high blood pressure… it’s a lot of people,” Miranda said. “To have the medical community saying we have a device that started from NASA’s intellectual property – and it could help people worldwide to be healthy, to enjoy life, to go about their business – is highly gratifying, and it’s very consistent with NASA’s mission to do work for the benefit of all.”
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By European Space Agency
The Sentinel-1C satellite, the third satellite of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, has arrived at the European spaceport in French Guiana for liftoff on the Vega-C rocket at the end of 2024. The satellite will continue the critical task of delivering key radar imagery of Earth’s surface for a wide range of Copernicus services and scientific applications.
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:20:48 ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), is on an epic eight-year journey to Jupiter. This first episode of ‘The journey of Juice’ tells the story of Juice’s first months in space, from its launch on 14 April 2023 to its lunar-Earth gravity assist (LEGA for short) in August 2024. This flyby was not only the first double gravity assist manoeuvre of its kind, it was also a perfect opportunity to test out the spacecraft’s cameras and science instruments.
In this episode, Juice’s Mission Manager Nicolas Altobelli explains how the spacecraft will become the first ever human-made machine to orbit a moon of another planet, in this case Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede.
You’ll also hear from Claire Vallat and Marc Costa at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) near Madrid, Spain. Juice will perform incredibly complex measurements once it reaches Jupiter, and the Science Operations team at ESAC is making sure we get the most out of every instrument.
Meanwhile, the Flight Control team at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, makes sure Juice is and stays on the right path. This episode shows what happened ‘behind the scenes’ before and during the lunar-Earth flyby, and stars Ignacio Tanco, Angela Dietz and members of the Juice Flight Control team as they do what they do best.
Finally, we highlight the ESA tracking station network (Estrack), another crucial component for Juice. Maintenance and Operations Engineer Belén Goméz gives a tour of the facility at Cebreros.
Following the very successful lunar-Earth flyby, Juice is now on its way to planet Venus for its next flyby. On 31 August 2025, this flyby will give Juice its second gravity boost. Tune back in next year for episode two of this series!
This series follows on from ‘The making of Juice’ series, which covered the planning, testing and launch of this once-in-a-generation mission.
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:23 On 19–20 August 2024, Juice successfully completed a world-first lunar-Earth flyby, with flight controllers guiding the spacecraft first past the Moon, then past Earth. The gravity of the two changed Juice’s speed and direction, sending it on a shortcut to Jupiter via Venus.
The closest approach to the Moon was at 23:15 CEST on 19 August, deflecting Juice towards a closest approach to Earth just over 24 hours later at 23:56 CEST on 20 August. In the hours before and after both close approaches, Juice’s two monitoring cameras captured photos, giving us a unique ‘Juice eye view’ of our home planet.
Juice’s two monitoring cameras provide black-and-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution (they can be processed in colour). Their main purpose is to monitor the spacecraft’s various booms and antennas, especially during the challenging period after launch. The photos they captured of the Moon and Earth during the lunar-Earth flyby are a bonus.
The piece of music that accompanies the images is called 11,2 km/s. It was composed by Gautier Archer back in 2015, and selected as the official theme music for ESA’s Estrack ground station network to mark its 40th anniversary (more information). The music is available under a CC BY-NC-SA licence.
Juice rerouted to Venus in world’s first lunar-Earth flyby
Juice’s lunar-Earth flyby: all you need to know
Processing notes: The Juice monitoring cameras provide 1024 x 1024 pixel images. Upscaling software was used to convert the images into 2160 x 2160 pixel images, which match the 3480 x 2160 pixel resolution of the 4K movie format.
Access the related broadcast quality footage.
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By European Space Agency
Since ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) flew by the Moon and Earth earlier this week, we’ve seen images from its monitoring cameras and we’ve seen images from its navigation camera. Today we reveal the first images from its scientific camera, JANUS, designed to take detailed, high-resolution photos of Jupiter and its icy moons.
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