English

Intercepting 3I/ATLAS at Closest Approach to Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2025-09-24 v3 Astrophysics of Galaxies Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Abstract

The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is expected to arrive at a distance of 53.56(±0.45)53.56(\pm 0.45) million km{\rm km} (0.358±0.0030.358\pm 0.003~au) from Jupiter on March 16, 2026. We show that applying a total thrust Δ\DeltaV of 2.6755km s12.6755 {{\rm km~s^{-1}}} to lower perijove on September 9, 2025 and then execute a Jupiter Oberth Maneuver, can bring the Juno spacecraft from its orbit around Jupiter to intercept the path of 3I/ATLAS on March 14, 2026. We further show that it is possible for Juno to come much closer to 3I/ATLAS (27\sim{27} million km) with 110 kg of remaining propellant, merely 5.4% of the initial fuel reservoir. We find that for low available Δ\DeltaV there is no particular benefit in application of a double impulse (for example to reach 27\sim{27} million km from 3I/ATLAS), however if Juno has a higher Δ\DeltaV capability there is significant advantage to a second impulse with typically a saving of propellant by a factor of a half. A close fly-by might be able to probe the nature of 3I/ATLAS far better than telescopes on Earth.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.21402,
  title  = {Intercepting 3I/ATLAS at Closest Approach to Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft},
  author = {Abraham Loeb and Adam Hibberd and Adam Crowl},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.21402},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Published in Aerospace, 2025, 12, 851