Updates Juno Mission News and Updates

[Keatah]

Do they recover these SRB casings?

 

[ADSWNJ]

I received the following info on Juno from the JPL:


"We’re planning to add a feature to both mission websites (www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu) that will allow you to quickly and easily see Juno’s current position. Mission status updates are also coming soon as a new website feature.



Currently there are two easy ways to find Juno’s position in space:



- First is the NASA Solar System Simulator: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov Be sure to convert your local time to UTC when using this tool (for example, UTC is U.S. Eastern time +4 hours). Choose your viewing options and click “Run Simulator” to generate your view. (We’ll soon set up a link or page that will do all of this for you automatically.)



- The other great way to explore space with Juno is via NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3D interactive: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes Be sure to check out the new Juno module (access it from the start page or within the interactive at upper right), which has info about the mission’s science goals, instruments and flight plan.





Less straightforward, and for serious navigation buffs, are the two following resources:



- The JPL Horizons System: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons. You can use this tool to generate ephemeris data for Juno and many other objects in the solar system.



- The NAIF navigation node: http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/index.html. These are publicly released navigation kernels used by NASA for navigation and mission planning. You’ll need to download the NAIF toolkit and grab the SPICE kernels which contain position info for the mission you’re interested in. Juno kernels are on this page: http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/data_outer.html



We hope you enjoy these tools and promise to share more of the latest info about the mission as we travel to Jupiter."

Pretty cool eh?

 

[orb]

Spaceflight Now: Juno spacecraft right on course after flawless launch:

Ten days after leaving Earth in the nose of an Atlas 5 launcher, the Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft is flying straight and true, allowing NASA managers to cancel a planned rocket burn to aim the probe toward the next waypoint on its five-year journey to the solar system's largest planet.

The decision to call off the clean-up maneuver later this month will move forward initial testing of Juno's suite of scientific instruments, according to Jan Chodas, the mission's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Because we canceled TCM 1, we will start the instrument low voltage checkouts earlier and perform them at a more leisurely pace," Chodas said.

One of Juno's sensors, a plasma and radio experiment named Waves, was activated and deployed its antennas Aug. 9, according to Chodas. Waves will measure plasma and radio activity in Jupiter's auroras.

Chodas said the remaining instruments, including a radiometer, magnetometer, particle detector, and infrared and ultraviolet payloads, will be checked out between Aug. 22 and Sept. 2.

A series of high-voltage tests before the end of the year will verify full functionality of all the instruments.

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[george7378]

It's a little late, but here's my video of JUNO launching to Jupiter:

 

[IronRain]

NASA JPL: Jupiter-Bound Space Probe Captures Earth And Moon

On its way to the biggest planet in the solar system -- Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft took time to capture its home planet and its natural satellite -- the moon.

"This is a remarkable sight people get to see all too rarely," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "This view of our planet shows how Earth looks from the outside, illustrating a special perspective of our role and place in the universe. We see a humbling yet beautiful view of ourselves."

 

[orb]

NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Refines its Path to Jupiter

February 02, 2012

Juno Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully refined its flight path Wednesday with the mission's first trajectory correction maneuver. The maneuver took place on Feb. 1. It is the first of a dozen planned rocket firings that, over the next five years, will keep Juno on course for its rendezvous with Jupiter.

"We had a maneuver planned soon after launch but our Atlas V rocket gave us such a good ride we didn't need to make any trajectory changes," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It is good to get another first under our belt. This burn couldn't have gone any better."

The trajectory correction maneuver, which adjusts the spacecraft's flight path, began at 10:10 a.m. PST (1:10 p.m. EST) on Feb. 1. The Juno spacecraft's thrusters fired for 25 minutes, consumed about 6.9 pounds (3.11 kilograms) of fuel and changed the spacecraft's speed by 3.9 feet, or 1.2 meters, per second. The next big maneuver for Juno will occur in late August of 2012 when Juno executes its first of two deep space maneuvers to set the stage for its Earth flyby - and gravity assist - on its way to Jupiter.

Launched on Aug. 5, 2011, Juno is 182 days and 279 million miles (449 million kilometers) into its five-year, 1,740-million-mile (2,800-million-kilometer) journey to Jupiter. Once in orbit, the spacecraft will orbit the planet's poles 33 times and use its collection of eight science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant's obscuring cloud cover to learn more about Jupiter's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.

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The Planetary Society Blog: Yay for Juno! First major course correction complete

SPACE.com: Jupiter-Bound NASA Probe Adjusts Course Toward Giant Planet

 

[orb]

NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Images Big Dipper

May 10, 2012

In England it is known as the "Plough," in Germany the "Great Cart," and in Malaysia the "Seven Ploughs." Since humanity first turned its eyes skyward, the seven northern hemisphere stars that compose the "Big Dipper" have been a welcome and familiar introduction to the heavens.

"I can recall as a kid making an imaginary line from the two stars that make up the right side of the Big Dipper's bowl and extending it upward to find the North Star," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Now, the Big Dipper is helping me make sure the camera aboard Juno is ready to do its job."

Click on image to enlarge​

NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft tested its JunoCam instrument on one of the icons of the night sky - the Big Dipper.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI/MSSS​

Launched on Aug. 5, 2011, the solar-powered Juno spacecraft is 279 days and 380 million miles (612 million kilometers) into its five-year, 1,905-million-mile (3,065-million-kilometer) journey to Jupiter. Once there, the spacecraft will orbit the planet's poles 33 times and use its nine instruments to image and probe beneath the gas giant's obscuring cloud cover to learn more about Jupiter's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.

One of those instruments, JunoCam, is tasked with taking closeups of the gas giant's atmosphere. But, with four-and-a-half years to go before photons of light from Jupiter first fill its CCD (charge-coupled device), and a desire to certify the camera in flight, Juno's mission planners took a page from their childhood and on March 21, aimed their camera at a familiar celestial landmark.

"I don't know if it's the first space-based image of the Big Dipper but, as it was taken when we were well beyond Mars orbit, it's probably from the farthest out," said Bolton. "But much more important than that is the simple fact that JunoCam, like the rest of this mission, works as advertised and is ready for its day in the sun - around Jupiter."

The JunoCam test image of the Big Dipper is online at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15653.

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SPACE.com: Far Out! Jupiter-Bound Probe Snaps Photo of Big Dipper

 

[orb]

SPACE.com: NASA's Juno Mission to Probe Jupiter's Biggest Secrets

 

[orb]

NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's Jupiter-Bound Juno Changes its Orbit

August 30, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. - Earlier today, navigators and mission controllers for NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter watched their computer screens as their spacecraft successfully performed its first deep-space maneuver. This first firing of Juno's main engine is one of two planned to refine the spacecraft's trajectory, setting the stage for a gravity assist from a flyby of Earth on Oct 9, 2013. Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

The deep-space maneuver began at 6:57 p.m. EDT (3:57 p.m. PDT) today, when the Leros-1b main engine was fired for 29 minutes 39 seconds. Based on telemetry, the Juno project team believes the burn was accurate, changing the spacecraft's velocity by about 770 mph (344 meters a second) while consuming about 829 pounds (376 kilograms) of fuel.

"This first and successful main engine burn is the payoff for a lot of hard work and planning by the operations team," said Juno Project Manager Rick Nybakken of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We started detailed preparations for this maneuver earlier this year, and over the last five months we've been characterizing and configuring the spacecraft, primarily in the propulsion and thermal systems. Over the last two weeks, we have carried out planned events almost every day, including heating tanks, configuring subsystems, uplinking new sequences, turning off the instruments and increasing the spacecraft's spin rate. There is a lot that goes into a main engine burn."

The burn occurred when Juno was more than 300 million miles (483 million kilometers) away from Earth.

A second deep space maneuver, of comparable duration and velocity change, is planned for Sept. 4. Together, they will place Juno on course for its Earth flyby, which will occur as the spacecraft is completing one elliptical orbit around the sun. The Earth flyby will boost Juno's velocity by 16,330 mph (about 7.3 kilometers per second), placing the spacecraft on its final flight path for Jupiter. The closest approach to Earth, on Oct. 9, 2013, will occur when Juno is at an altitude of about 310 miles (500 kilometers).

"We still have the Earth flyby and another 1.4 billion miles and four years to go to get to Jupiter," said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "The team will be busy during that whole time, collecting science on the way out to Jupiter and getting ready for our prime mission at Jupiter, which is focused on learning the history of how our solar system was formed. We need to go to Jupiter to learn our history because Jupiter is the largest of the planets, and it formed by grabbing most of the material left over from the sun's formation. Earth and the other planets are really made from the leftovers of the leftovers, so if we want to learn about the history of the elements that made Earth and life, we need to first understand what happened when Jupiter formed."

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SPACE.com: Jupiter-Bound Probe Changes Orbit in Deep Space

 

[Notebook]

BBC article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19477618

Westcott, still going.

N.

 

[orb]

Spaceflight Now: Juno given precautionary delay to course adjustment:

The Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft was supposed to have completed the second of two critical engine firings Tuesday to aim for a gravity sling shot past Earth next year, but managers put off the burn to analyze pressure readings aboard the probe.

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The first "deep space maneuver" occurred last Thursday, Aug. 30, more than 300 million miles from home, to begin fine-tuning the craft's course to intercept Earth. The Leros-1b main engine was fired for 29 minutes and 39 seconds, changing Juno's velocity by about 770 mph while consuming around 829 pounds of fuel.

It was an accurate maneuver and navigators reported it was a success. But subsequent reviews of telemetry revealed one of the propellant pressures within the spacecraft's propulsion system was higher than expected. Juno's controllers opted to scrub Tuesday's burn and take an extra 10 days to examine the pressure increase and consider mitigation options, NASA said in a statement.

The upcoming burn, targeting a similar duration and speed change as the first, is rescheduled for Sept. 14 with no impact to the mission.

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SPACE.com: Jupiter-Bound Probe's Maneuver in Deep Space Delayed

 

[orb]

NASA:
Deep Space Maneuver

Earlier today, NASA's Juno spacecraft executed a second Deep Space Maneuver. The maneuver began at approximately 3:30 p.m. PDT (6:30 p.m. EDT) today and ended at approximately 4:00 p.m. PDT (7:00 p.m. EDT). The burn occurred when Juno was more than 298 million miles (480 million kilometers) away from Earth. Preliminary telemetry from the spacecraft indicates that the burn was completed as planned. A more complete report on the maneuver should be available early next week, after the Juno mission team has an opportunity to analyze the spacecraft's maneuver performance.

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[orb]

NASA / NASA JPL:
Juno's Two Deep Space Maneuvers are 'Back-To-Back Home Runs'

September 17, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully executed a second Deep Space Maneuver, called DSM-2 last Friday, Sept. 14. The 30 minute firing of its main engine refined the Jupiter-bound spacecraft's trajectory, setting the stage for a gravity assist from a flyby of Earth on Oct 9, 2013. Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

The maneuver began at 3:30 p.m. PDT (6:30 p.m. EDT), when the Leros-1b main engine began to fire. The burn ended at 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT). Based on telemetry, the Juno project team believes the burn was accurate, changing the spacecraft's velocity by about 867 mph (388 meters a second) while consuming about 829 pounds (376 kilograms) of fuel.

The burn occurred when Juno was more than 298 million miles (480 million kilometers) from Earth.

Juno executed its first deep space maneuver (DSM-1), one of comparable duration and velocity change, on Aug. 30. Together, both maneuvers placed Juno on course for its Earth flyby, which will occur as the spacecraft is completing one elliptical orbit around the sun. The Earth flyby will boost Juno's velocity by 16,330 mph (about 7.3 kilometers per second), placing the spacecraft on its final flight path for Jupiter. The closest approach to Earth, on Oct. 9, 2013, will occur when Juno is at an altitude of about 348 miles (560 kilometers).

"It feels like we hit back-to-back home runs here with the near-flawless propulsion system performance seen during both DSM-1 and DSM-2." said Juno Project Manager Rick Nybakken of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "These successes move us closer to being ready for our most critical mission event, the Jupiter Orbit Insertion main engine burn in July 2016. We're not in the playoffs yet, as that will come in 2016 when we arrive at Jupiter, but it does feel fantastic to have hit both of these DSMs out of the park."

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[Philosophaie]

Juno Spacecraft flyby

Juno Spacecraft
Launch : Aug 5, 2011 16:25 UTC
Separation : Aug 5, 2011 17:18:11.12 UTC
DSM-1 : Aug 30, 2012 22:29 UTC (344.95 m/s)
DSM-2 : Sep 3, 2012 22:29 UTC (387.77 m/s)
Earth Flyby : Oct 9, 2013 14:01 UTC
(alt=500.149 km, lat=-34.372 deg,long=-17.146 deg
Arrive Jupiter: Jul 5, 2016 02:29 UTC (JOI to 78-day capture orbit, 431 m/s)
End of mission: Oct 16, 2017 19:33 UTC (Jupiter impact)

Why did Juno circle the orbit of Earth before traveling to Jupiter and flying by Oct 9,2013? Was it a gravity assist or what? It seems it be a waste of fuel when it is looping out in space.

 

[george7378]

I think they chose the most fuel efficient path, which involves slowly circling out from Earth, and then flying by again to use Earth's gravity to give it enough velocity to reach Jupiter (instead of using a lot of fuel to try and push the spacecraft directly to Jupiter in the first place). Thiskind of planning happens a lot in modern missions - e.g. Messenger to Mercury, and the Grail spacecraft now orbiting the Moon.

On a side note, I'd love to know how they calculate which path to take, when to fly by Earth, how close the flyby should be, etc... - I suppose computer simulations are used.

 

[dgatsoulis]

On a side note, I'd love to know how they calculate which path to take, when to fly by Earth, how close the flyby should be, etc... - I suppose computer simulations are used.

:lol:

EDIT:
Here is the trajectory design of the Juno mission.

The name of Juno's trajectory to Jupiter is formally known as '2+ dV-EGA'. EGA stands for Earth Gravity Assist and the 2+ specifies the timing of that flyby occurring a little more than two years into the mission. dV indicates that Juno utilizes a hyperbolic excess velocity leveraging trajectory. This trajectory is attractive because it features a short flight time to Jupiter while saving launch energy costs.

 

[Unstung]

JPL: "NASA's Juno is Halfway to Jupiter"

"Juno's odometer just clicked over to 9.464 astronomical units," said Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "The team is looking forward, preparing for the day we enter orbit around the most massive planet in our solar system."
[...]

That's one speedy spacecraft.​

Juno launched two years ago and is now halfway to Jupiter, but it will take three more years to get there as the spacecraft's velocity decreases further from the sun. Interestingly, Juno launched in August 2011, is halfway to Jupiter in August 2013, and may arrive at Jupiter in August 2016. The next major event during the cruise is the Earth flyby this October. The spacecraft will test its instruments on Earth.

Current position from NASA's website (may update weekly):

 

[Keatah]

It's interesting to note the extraordinary similarity of the magnetometer boom & sensor as compared to a Mechanical Hard Disk head swing arm! You've got the hollowed out truss-work, the sensing tip, and main spacecraft body. And to top it off, the whole thing spins or rotates through an arc and reads magnetic field strength.

Sorry, as a data recovery specialist this comparison was just screaming to be pointed out. And visual cues are striking to say the least.

Now, I haven't read all the mission details yet, but is this craft going to do close flybys of any of the moons?

 

[Unstung]

Now, I haven't read all the mission details yet, but is this craft going to do close flybys of any of the moons?

Nope. The spacecraft flies over the poles of Jupiter in a highly elliptical orbit, so there is no chance for Juno's orbit to intersect a moon and get close. The spacecraft's camera is relatively wide angle and not a telescope like New Horizon's LORRI. So Juno is not designed to observe the moons, period. The instruments may indirectly study Io through its interaction with Jupiter's magnetic field, but that's about it.

I've helped contribute to the JunoCam Wikipedia article which includes some information. The main article on the spacecraft provides a summary of the mission and its instruments.

A source describes the camera in more detail: Junocam will get us great global shots down onto Jupiter's poles

About 40 megabytes of Junocam data can be sent back to Earth on each orbit; depending on the exact size of each image and the amount of data compression, somewhere between 10-100 images will be taken. A very common question about Junocam is whether it will be able to image Jupiter's moons, especially volcanically active Io. In theory, Junocam can image them, but unless there is a serendipitously close approach, they will never be more than a few pixels across. For example, if Io were directly above Juno it would be at a distance of about 345,000 kilometers and resolution would be 232 kilometers per pixel, so the whole satellite would only be about 16 pixels across. The other moons will be even farther away.
...
Junocam has a wide field of view, covering about 70 degrees around a line perpedicular to the spacecraft's spin axis by a full 360 degrees around the spin axis. As such the resolution is low -- the instantaneous field of view (the angle one pixel subtends) is 673 microradians. (For comparison, Dawn's Framing Camera has am IFOV of 94 microradians, and Cassini's Narrow-Angle Camera is 6 microradians.) The Junocam resolution thus ranges from about 3 km/pixel at closest approach to about 1800 km/pixel at apojove, when the planet will only be about 75 pixels across. For the two hours around closest approach, Junocam will achieve better resolution than Cassini did during its Jupiter flyby.

More: Juno @ Io

The biggest encumbrance to performing Io science with Juno is the low spatial resolution of the imagers on-board and their longevity in Jupiter's radiation environment. The best encounter of Io by Juno will occur on September 24, 2017 at a distance of 139,470 km. If Juno were to target Io at this time, JunoCAM's pixel resolution would be 111 km/pixel while for JIRAM it would be 35 km/pixel. So Juno's best images of Io would be on part with what New Horizons's RALPH instrument acquired, despite the order of magnitude improvement in distance. Another issue to keep in mind is that JunoCAM may not last much beyond the 7th orbit due to the high radiation environment at Jupiter. The closest approach during this time is on orbit 7 on December 24, 2016 at distance of 311,050 km. The projected pixel scale for this encounter would be 78 km/pixel for JIRAM and 249 km/pixel for JunoCAM.

Main Space Science Systems built the camera and says it is "derived from the MSL MARDI instrument", not something that would take high resolution photos of distant moons.

 

[orb]

NASA: Juno Earth Flyby - Oct. 9, 2013:

NASA’s Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft will perform a close flyby of Earth on Oct. 9, 2013. The time of closest approach is approximately 19:21 UTC (3:21 pm U.S. Eastern time). During the flyby Juno will come to within 347 miles (559 kilometers) of Earth.

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Map showing Juno’s ground track during the Earth flyby. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The geometry of Juno’s Earth flyby near the rime of closest approach. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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