NASA's Juno mission will be extended
This image, from an imager from NASA's Juno spacecraft, shows the merger of two storms. The two white ellipses seen within the orange band on the left side of the center are anticyclonic storms— storms that rotate counterclockwise. This photo was taken on December 26, 2019.
Image credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/Southwest Research Institute/MSSS
Image processing: Tanya Oleksuik, CC BY
The Juno probe, which has been collecting data on Jupiter, the gas giant, since July 2016, will be the explorer for the entire Jupiter system, including Jupiter, Jupiter's rings and its moons.
NASA has authorized an extension, the Juno probe, to explore jupiter in terms of mission content and duration. The agency's most distant planetary orbiter will now continue to investigate the solar system's largest planet until September 2025, or until the end of the probe's own lifespan. The extension is intended to make Juno an explorer of the entire Jupiter system, including Jupiter, its rings, and its moons, with plans to meet several times with Jupiter's three most mysterious Galilean moons (Ganymede, Europa, and Ganymede).
Scott Bolton, principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said: "Since its orbital operation in 2016, Juno has continued to unravel the mystery of the inner workings of this gas giant. With the postponement of the mission, we will answer the fundamental questions that arose during Juno's main mission, as well as during the deeper exploration of Jupiter's ring system and the Galileo moon. ”
The Juno mission was proposed in 2003, launched in 2011, and arrived on Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Its main tasks were completed in July 2021. The postponed mission involved 42 new exploration orbits, including close-range travel of Jupiter's North Cyclone; overflights by Europa, Europa, and Ganymede; and the first full-scale exploration of Jupiter's dark rings.
NASA extended the duration of the Juno ship's mission to explore Jupiter. Expand the postponed mission, involving 42 new exploration orbits, expand Juno's already discoveries, and increase exploration of planetary rings, as well as europs for Ganymede, Europa, and Ganymede.
Image credit: NASA/JPL California Institute of Technology/Southwest Research Institute
Lori Glass, head of NASA's Planetary Science Division at NASA's Washington headquarters, said: "By expanding the scientific goals of this important orbiting observatory, Juno's team will begin to study areas of science historically needed for the mainline. This represents an efficient and innovative advance in NASA's Solar System Exploration Program. ”
The data collected by Juno helps achieve the goals of the next generation of Jupiter system missions — NASA's Europa Clipper probe mission and the European Space Agency's JUpiter Ice Moons Explorer mission. Juno's investigation of Europa's volcano moon, Europa, addresses many of the scientific targets identified by the National Academy of Sciences for future Ganymede missions.
The postponed mission will expand its scientific activities to investigate Jupiter's internal structure, internal magnetic field, atmosphere (including polar cyclones, deep atmospheres, and auroras), and magnetosphere.
The Juno spacecraft has three massive fan blades that extend about 66 feet (20 m) outward from its cylindrical hexagonal hull, a mechanical engineering marvel. As it orbits in an elliptical orbit around Jupiter, the spacecraft rotates to maintain its stability.
See the full range of interactive experiences of the solar system with the naked eye. Image credit: NASA/JPL California Institute of Technology
"After the project was extended, Juno became its own follow-up task." Steve Levine, a Juno project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said. "Polar close-up observation, radio occultation" — a remote sensing technique that measures the properties of planetary atmospheres or planetary ring systems — "combines artificial satellite flight with focused magnetic field research into a new mission, which is the next logical step in our exploration of Jupiter's system." ”
Jupiter's mysterious Great Blue Spot is an isolated, strong magnetic field near its equator. In the six early flights of this extended mission, the Great Blue Spot will be the target of high-spatial resolution geomagnetic measurements. As Juno's orbit evolved, several flights over Ganymede (2), Europa (3), and Europa (11) were planned, as well as several crossings of Jupiter's dark rings.
Juno will also fly over Europa and Io's ring-shaped ion clouds several times to probe the radiation environment near the satellites in order to better prepare for the Europa Liber and Jupiter Ice Satellite probe missions and optimize observation strategies, scientific priorities and mission design. In the expanded mission, Juno's extensive list of scientific surveys also added elements of planetary geology and planetary ring dynamics.
Evolving tracks
The natural evolution of Juno's orbit around the gas giant provides a host of new scientific opportunities that will be exploited in extended missions. Every scientific probe allows a solar spacecraft to fly low above Jupiter's cloud top, collecting image data from a unique vantage point that no other spacecraft has ever seen.
In each orbit, juno's closest point to the planet is called the "near-wood point" (or PJ). Over the course of the mission, Juno's "near-wood point" moved north, significantly increasing the image resolution of the northern hemisphere. The design of the extended mission took advantage of the continuous northward migration of these "near-wood points" to clearly see the multiple cyclones surrounding Jupiter's north pole, Jupiter's rings, and the Galilean moon flying by.
"The Juno mission designers, in the expansion mission, made an amazing design that could save the most valuable spacecraft resource in the mission - fuel." JPL's Juno project manager Ed Hirst said. "Gravitational force from multiple moons flying over can assist our spacecraft through the Jupiter system while providing a wealth of scientific research opportunities." Moreover, satellite overflights also shorten Juno's orbital period, thereby increasing the total number of available scientific orbits. ”
The encounter with the satellite, which began with a low-flying Europa on June 7, 2021 (PJ34), reduced juno's orbital period from about 53 days to 43 days. The overflight prompted Juno to fly over Europa at close range on September 29, 2022 (PJ45), further shortening the orbital period to 38 days. After that, two close flybys over Io on December 30, 2023 (PJ57) and February 3, 2024 (PJ58) will continue to shorten Juno's orbital period to 33 days.
More about the task
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. It was for principal investigator Scott M. Thompson of the Southwest Research Institute in san antonio. J. Bolton manages Juno's mission. The Juno mission is part of NASA's New Frontier Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Board in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, based in Denver, built and operated the spacecraft.
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