A successful 3I/ATLAS downlink

On the morning of 20 February 2026, the Juice flight control team at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) successfully ran the last of two 3I/ATLAS data downlink passes. After a 16 minute wait, the signal reached the Malargüe deep space antenna and was immediately relayed to ESOC. A smiling spacecraft operations manager, Angela Dietz, is surrounded by her team as they see Juice's navigation camera images of 3I/ATLAS pop-up on their computer screen.