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Nasa Picks "juno" As Next New Frontiers Mission
Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 1 2005, 10:10 PM
Post #1





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http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/jun/H...rontiers_2.html

Yeah, I know it ain't Saturn, but we don't seem to have any proper slot for Jovian news -- including yesterday's totally unexpected announcement that Amalthea's density is so low as to suggest that it's a highly porous ice object; maybe a captured Kuiper Belt Object reduced to rubble by infalling meteoroids. As Jason Perry says, this might explain those previously mysterious light-colored patches on Amalthea -- they may be its underlying ice, exposed by impacts that punched through the layer of sulfur spray-painted onto it by Io.

Scott Bolton has been pretty talkative to me already about the design of Juno. It certainly won't be as good in the PR department as Galileo or Cassini, but it DOES carry a camera -- as much for PR as for Jovian cloud science, according to Bolton. And since the latitude of periapsis of its highly elliptical orbit will change radically during the primary mission, I wonder if they might be able to set up at least one close photographic flyby of Io and/or Amalthea? (I believe, by the way, that this selection is a bit ahead of schedule -- and it certainly indicates that NASA's science program under Griffin won't be a complete slave to Bush's Moon-Mars initiative.)
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 11 2005, 09:04 PM
Post #2





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Juno's orbit will go from only 4500 km above Jupiter's 1-bar air pressure level (it will be even closer to the tops of the ammonia clouds) all the way out to 30 Jupiter radii from the planet. (They need to get that close to ensure really high-resolution gravity and magnetic maps of Jupiter -- it's the same orbit planned for the "INSIDE Jupiter" mission that was a Discovery finalist twice and has now been combined with two other Jovian Discovery proposals to create Juno.)

That periapsis will wander somewhat in latitude, although I haven't got specific figures yet -- but I believe it's enough to theoretically allow flybys of any mooon out to Callisto. PI Scott Bolton tells me that there are currently no plans for flybys of any of the moons (although, during our previous conversations, he had expressed some interest in the idea during the extended mission); but the description in Space.com says that Juno's camera may be used for longer-distance photos of Io and Amalthea.

It's important to remember that this mission has radically different goals from any mission to study Europa or the other moons -- its purpose is to study JUPITER, by God, and specifically its composition and the size of its rock/ice core, which are extremely important in answering questions about how the giant planets actually formed. (This is one of the most important questions for planetary scientists right now, and there are two radically different theories.) Also Jupiter's polar magnetosphere, which the NASA's Sun-Solar Systems Directorate -- separately from its Solar System Directorate -- has also declared to be an extremely important short-term goal for its own researches and worthy of a mission. To achieve all this, it needs an orbit completely different from those that would be used by a moon-studying orbiter -- and since such a mission is also simpler and cheaper, they decided, entirely logically, to fly it first.

As for the Europa mixup, John Rehling doesn't mention the biggest villain of all: Dan Goldin, aka "Captain Crazy". NASA's science advisory board recommended officially -- and entirely sensibly -- that a Pluto mission, which required no new technology at all, should be flown BEFORE the Europa Orbiter, and specifically in 2003. Dan Goldin, however, was determined to reverse their order because of his personal obsession with astrobiology at all costs -- "Nobody gives a damn about Pluto", he told his staffers. (His repeated urgings that NASA should use radically new technologies, entirely unnecessarily, to build a teeny-weeny Pluto probe --"the size of my fist", to quote one disgruntled researcher -- were, as he privately told his staffers, just a cover for the fact that he intended to kill the Pluto mission completely.)

The result, given the very real and major new technological difficulties in flying a Europa Orbiter, were that we didn't get either mission -- or rather that the Pluto mission was delayed until 2006 and finally rammed through by Congress over the dead bodies of Goldin, Sean O'Keefe and President Bush, which means both a more expensive Pluto mission and a distinctly scientifically inferior one to what we would have had had it been launched in 2003 or 2004. The case for such a mission, both scientifically and fiscally, was so strong that even the GOP Congress was finally firmly convinced of the idiocy of not flying it. (To my continuing amazement, I myself ended up playing a significant role in getting that decision made -- largely due to a SpaceDaily article I published in 2000 pointing out that either the Stardust or CONTOUR comet probe could be easily redesigned to fly a Pluto mission cheaply -- which is why I have a free ticket to its launch next January. No doubt other people had come up with the same idea; but Goldin, it later turned out, had been threatening to cut off their grants if they didn't keep their mouths shut. They had no such leverage over me, and so I ended up -- entirely accidentally -- belling the cat. But I digress.)

Anyway, as a result of Goldin's monomania, we ended up getting both a Pluto mission later and worse and more expensive than we could have had it, but also probably some unnecesary delays to Europa Orbiter -- which were then made worse by the fact that O'Keefe, due to his total lack of engineering training, fell for the cretinous JIMO scheme to fly a nuclear-powered battleship to Jupiter, even though the science community had officially stated that it didn't want it. (In this respect, as in many others, he got rolled by his unscrupulous NASA underlings; but one scientist has told me that O'Keefe's nuclear-enthusiast brother also helped talk him into it.) Now -- years later than we could have been -- we're back to Square One where Europa Orbiter is concerned.

What Ed Strick says is also true: the first version of Europa Orbiter was cancelled becuase it had a $1 billion cost cap, which simply could not be met. Now NASA's new Solar System Roadmap calls for it to be the first of the new class of "Small Flagship" Solar System mission -- costing between $700 million and $ 1.5 billion -- to be launched at 5-year intervals. Europa Orbiter is recommended for launch in 2014 (and it looks more and more as though the ESA will collaborate with us on it). The second Small Flagship is likely to be to Titan in 2019, and the third to Venus in 2024.
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MiniTES
post Jun 15 2005, 02:51 PM
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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 11 2005, 09:04 PM)
Juno's orbit will go from only 4500 km above Jupiter's 1-bar air pressure level (it will be even closer to the tops of the ammonia clouds) all the way out to 30 Jupiter radii from the planet.  (They need to get that close to ensure really high-resolution gravity and magnetic maps of Jupiter -- it's the same orbit planned for the "INSIDE Jupiter" mission that was a Discovery finalist twice and has now been combined with two other Jovian Discovery proposals to create Juno.) 

That periapsis will wander somewhat in latitude, although I haven't got specific figures yet -- but I believe it's enough to theoretically allow flybys of any mooon out to Callisto.  PI Scott Bolton tells me that there are currently no plans for flybys of any of the moons (although, during our previous conversations, he had expressed some interest in the idea during the extended mission); but the description in Space.com says that Juno's camera may be used for longer-distance photos of Io and Amalthea.

It's important to remember that this mission has radically different goals from any mission to study Europa or the other moons -- its purpose is to study JUPITER, by God, and specifically its composition and the size of its rock/ice core, which are extremely important in answering questions about how the giant planets actually formed.  (This is one of the most important questions for planetary scientists right now, and there are two radically different theories.)  Also Jupiter's polar magnetosphere, which the NASA's Sun-Solar Systems Directorate -- separately from its Solar System Directorate -- has also declared to be an extremely important short-term goal for its own researches and worthy of a mission.  To achieve all this, it needs an orbit completely different from those that would be used by a moon-studying orbiter -- and since such a mission is also simpler and cheaper, they decided, entirely logically, to fly it first.

As for the Europa mixup, John Rehling doesn't mention the biggest villain of all: Dan Goldin, aka "Captain Crazy".  NASA's science advisory board recommended officially -- and entirely sensibly -- that a Pluto mission, which required no new technology at all, should be flown BEFORE the Europa Orbiter, and specifically in 2003.  Dan Goldin, however, was determined to reverse their order because of his personal obsession with astrobiology at all costs -- "Nobody gives a damn about Pluto", he told his staffers.  (His repeated urgings that NASA should use radically new technologies, entirely unnecessarily, to build a teeny-weeny Pluto probe --"the size of my fist", to quote one disgruntled researcher -- were, as he privately told his staffers, just a cover for the fact that he intended to kill the Pluto mission completely.) 

The result, given the very real and major new technological difficulties in flying a Europa Orbiter, were that we didn't get either mission -- or rather that the Pluto mission was delayed until 2006 and finally rammed through by Congress over the dead bodies of Goldin, Sean O'Keefe and President Bush, which means both a more expensive Pluto mission and a distinctly scientifically inferior one to what we would have had had it been launched in 2003 or 2004.  The case for such a mission, both scientifically and fiscally, was so strong that even the GOP Congress was finally firmly convinced of the idiocy of not flying it.  (To my continuing amazement, I myself ended up playing a significant role in getting that decision made -- largely due to a SpaceDaily article I published in 2000 pointing out that either the Stardust or CONTOUR comet probe could be easily redesigned to fly a Pluto mission cheaply -- which is why I have a free ticket to its launch next January.  No doubt other people had come up with the same idea; but Goldin, it later turned out, had been threatening to cut off their grants if they didn't keep their mouths shut.  They had no such leverage over me, and so I ended up -- entirely accidentally -- belling the cat.  But I digress.) 

Anyway, as a result of Goldin's monomania, we ended up getting both a Pluto mission later and worse and more expensive than we could have had it, but also probably some unnecesary delays to Europa Orbiter -- which were then made worse by the fact that O'Keefe, due to his total lack of engineering training, fell for the cretinous JIMO scheme to fly a nuclear-powered battleship to Jupiter, even though the science community had officially stated that it didn't want it.  (In this respect, as in many others, he got rolled by his unscrupulous NASA underlings; but one scientist has told me that O'Keefe's nuclear-enthusiast brother also helped talk him into it.)  Now -- years later than we could have been -- we're back to Square One where Europa Orbiter is concerned. 

What Ed Strick says is also true:  the first version of Europa Orbiter was cancelled becuase it had a $1 billion cost cap, which simply could not be met.  Now NASA's new Solar System Roadmap calls for it to be the first of the new class of "Small Flagship" Solar System mission -- costing between $700 million and $ 1.5 billion -- to be launched at 5-year intervals.  Europa Orbiter is recommended for launch in 2014 (and it looks more and more as though the ESA will collaborate with us on it).  The second Small Flagship is likely to be to Titan in 2019, and the third to Venus in 2024.
*


Why is it spinning? Granted, the science to be done doesn't require imaging, but you CAN do some really good science with cameras. Recall the differences in what we learned between Pioneer and Voyager, much of which was due to the fact that Voyager had a camera. How much more would it cost to build a three-axis stabilized craft? If it is spinning, are our computer processing techniques good enough to reconstruct images better than we could with Pioneer. Or can I say the magic words "scan platform".... wink.gif

Who will be in charge of building the small flagships? Are these going to be MRO-class missions, or more like Discovery missions to the outer planets? I'm assuming Juno will have some RTGs to play with? What does the instrumentation look like on the possible Europa orbiter? It needs a radar, and of course a camera.


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Posts in this topic
- BruceMoomaw   Nasa Picks "juno" As Next New Frontiers Mission   Jun 1 2005, 10:10 PM
- - tedstryk   Great to hear. With the whole lunar program being...   Jun 1 2005, 10:44 PM
- - djellison   I take it this puts to bed the possibility of an N...   Jun 1 2005, 10:45 PM
- - Sunspot   Any proposals on what kind of camera?   Jun 1 2005, 11:39 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   No website yet, and I have no details on what kind...   Jun 1 2005, 11:51 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Postscript: the mission selection actually was pla...   Jun 1 2005, 11:51 PM
- - Sunspot   They can't return to Jupiter without taking a ...   Jun 1 2005, 11:57 PM
- - edstrick   Atmosphere sounding instruments can also return ve...   Jun 2 2005, 06:49 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Well, I can give you the full instrument list (alt...   Jun 2 2005, 10:37 AM
|- - garybeau   I would have thought / hoped the next Jovian missi...   Jun 2 2005, 12:39 PM
|- - tty   QUOTE (garybeau @ Jun 2 2005, 02:39 PM)I woul...   Jun 2 2005, 04:40 PM
|- - volcanopele   QUOTE (garybeau @ Jun 2 2005, 05:39 AM)I woul...   Jun 2 2005, 05:51 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (garybeau @ Jun 2 2005, 05:39 AM)I woul...   Jun 6 2005, 03:26 PM
|- - tedstryk   I think the six-flybys analogy is a good one (seve...   Jun 6 2005, 05:02 PM
|- - Bjorn Jonsson   I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Juno wil...   Jun 6 2005, 05:26 PM
- - Chmee   Hopefully Juno wont have an umbrella style high ga...   Jun 2 2005, 03:03 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Well, the Decadal Survey recommended -- and the ne...   Jun 3 2005, 01:17 AM
|- - Gsnorgathon   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 3 2005, 01:17 AM)......   Jun 3 2005, 02:16 AM
|- - Redstone   QUOTE (Gsnorgathon @ Jun 3 2005, 02:16 AM)Are...   Jun 3 2005, 02:32 PM
|- - Gsnorgathon   QUOTE (Redstone @ Jun 3 2005, 02:32 PM)... if...   Jun 3 2005, 09:58 PM
|- - garybeau   QUOTE The Jupiter icy moons' orbiter mission w...   Jun 4 2005, 12:18 PM
|- - tedstryk   I don't think getting to Europa is the biggest...   Jun 4 2005, 12:27 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Jason is likely to be disappointed if he thinks of...   Jun 3 2005, 01:21 AM
|- - volcanopele   I never thought it would actually flyby Io, given ...   Jun 3 2005, 01:35 AM
|- - um3k   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 2 2005, 09:21 PM)it ...   Jun 4 2005, 02:38 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   BESIDES all that, there was one other major proble...   Jun 3 2005, 10:57 PM
- - edstrick   The Juno instrument selection looks quite "re...   Jun 4 2005, 09:04 AM
- - edstrick   Most of the P.R. talk on crashing Galileo into Jup...   Jun 5 2005, 01:56 AM
- - Decepticon   QUOTE ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATT...   Jun 5 2005, 03:29 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   I don't think the crashing of Galileo to ...   Jun 5 2005, 06:23 AM
|- - dvandorn   The other real difference between potential Martia...   Jun 5 2005, 09:30 AM
|- - garybeau   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 5 2005, 01:23 AM)Tha...   Jun 6 2005, 12:55 AM
|- - JRehling   Three miscellaneous comments for this thread, from...   Jun 6 2005, 01:30 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   QUOTE (edstrick @ Jun 5 2005, 01:56 AM)Most o...   Jun 5 2005, 06:32 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   While the new Solar System Roadmap (or, rather its...   Jun 5 2005, 06:53 AM
|- - tedstryk   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 5 2005, 06:53 AM)But...   Jun 5 2005, 10:35 AM
|- - Stephen   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 5 2005, 06:53 AM)But...   Jun 8 2005, 09:52 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   QUOTE (edstrick @ Jun 4 2005, 09:04 AM)The Ju...   Jun 5 2005, 07:09 AM
|- - tedstryk   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 5 2005, 07:09 AM)...   Jun 5 2005, 10:32 AM
- - Redstone   QUOTE (garybeau @ Jun 4 2005, 12:18 PM)The or...   Jun 6 2005, 02:17 AM
|- - Bob Shaw   Some comments on life on Mars (and elsewhere) and ...   Jun 6 2005, 01:58 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Yeah, it will be -- which will certainly interfere...   Jun 6 2005, 07:27 PM
- - Myran   dvandorn wrote: "I think the most boring thi...   Jun 8 2005, 12:12 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (Myran @ Jun 8 2005, 05:12 AM)As for sa...   Jun 8 2005, 04:47 PM
- - Decepticon   They are sending a Probe to Jupiter and according ...   Jun 10 2005, 02:03 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (Decepticon @ Jun 9 2005, 07:03 PM)They...   Jun 10 2005, 04:30 PM
|- - tedstryk   Another factor to consider is that a decent Europa...   Jun 10 2005, 04:55 PM
- - Gsnorgathon   FWIW, a wee writeup at Astrobio.net, and the ever-...   Jun 10 2005, 05:30 AM
- - edstrick   Part of the problem is that *any* Europa orbiter m...   Jun 11 2005, 12:16 AM
|- - Decepticon   Even with Galileo type flybys would make me happy....   Jun 11 2005, 02:37 AM
- - Phil Stooke   Ted, I missed your Amalthea images until just now ...   Jun 11 2005, 03:21 AM
|- - tedstryk   QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Jun 11 2005, 03:21 AM)Te...   Jun 11 2005, 03:30 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Juno's orbit will go from only 4500 km above J...   Jun 11 2005, 09:04 PM
|- - MiniTES   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 11 2005, 09:04 PM)Ju...   Jun 15 2005, 02:51 PM
- - Phil Stooke   Spinning doesn't have to mean Pioneer 10-class...   Jun 15 2005, 03:28 PM
- - Decepticon   Can Juno at least take Movie like animations of th...   Jun 15 2005, 08:17 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   According to the Space.com article, it will indeed...   Jun 15 2005, 10:17 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   "...rathern using a filter wheel" is rea...   Jun 15 2005, 10:19 PM
- - Sunspot   Oh... thats a shame, I guess we probably wont ever...   Jun 15 2005, 10:46 PM
- - Phil Stooke   Actually we will see some good stuff in 2007 from ...   Jun 15 2005, 11:26 PM
- - edstrick   Why is it spinning? Field and Particles instrument...   Jun 15 2005, 11:27 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Fear not! We WILL see excellent images of Jup...   Jun 16 2005, 02:26 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Footnote: the reason that the radiation dose for a...   Jun 16 2005, 02:38 AM
|- - MiniTES   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 16 2005, 02:38 AM)Fo...   Jun 16 2005, 05:20 PM
|- - djellison   QUOTE (MiniTES @ Jun 16 2005, 05:20 PM)How th...   Jun 16 2005, 06:25 PM
- - edstrick   And.... It's moving perpendicular to the belts...   Jun 16 2005, 05:43 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   It would be more accurate to say that they intend ...   Jun 16 2005, 07:44 AM
- - Analyst   Bruce, I want your optimism when it comes to futur...   Jun 16 2005, 12:34 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (Analyst @ Jun 16 2005, 05:34 AM)Bruce,...   Jun 16 2005, 01:53 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Yup -- they've had solar panels planned for a ...   Jun 17 2005, 12:08 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   QUOTE (Analyst @ Jun 16 2005, 12:34 PM)Bruce,...   Jun 17 2005, 12:21 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   You'll notice that I HAVE backtracked from the...   Jun 17 2005, 12:25 AM
|- - vjkane2000   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 16 2005, 05:25 PM)Yo...   Jun 17 2005, 02:55 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (vjkane2000 @ Jun 16 2005, 07:55 PM)The...   Jun 17 2005, 04:19 PM
|- - vjkane2000   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 17 2005, 09:19 AM)A dif...   Jun 17 2005, 05:23 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   It's a possibility -- but I suspect you're...   Jun 17 2005, 07:17 AM
|- - gpurcell   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 17 2005, 07:17 AM)In...   Jun 17 2005, 07:39 PM
- - edstrick   You really *do* want a very high power telescopic ...   Jun 17 2005, 07:22 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Turns out I misread that white paper -- Europa Orb...   Jun 17 2005, 07:22 AM
- - vjkane2000   Cost is, of course, a major issue for any Jupiter ...   Jun 17 2005, 02:00 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Damned if I know, especially with this president -...   Jun 19 2005, 10:29 PM
|- - Bob Shaw   Bruce: Are you talking about the Hubble II comple...   Jun 19 2005, 10:47 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   As for Van Kane's comments on the "Io Obs...   Jun 19 2005, 10:58 PM
|- - JRehling   Imagine the way Halley's Comet's orbi...   Jun 20 2005, 01:25 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   "Are you talking about the Hubble II complete...   Jun 19 2005, 11:54 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   (1) "Imagine the way Halley's Comet...   Jun 20 2005, 02:55 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 19 2005, 07:55 PM)Ah...   Jun 20 2005, 08:55 PM
- - gpurcell   I've always thought that the best deorbit miss...   Jun 20 2005, 03:09 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Actually, there are a hell of a lot of things they...   Jun 21 2005, 12:31 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 21 2005, 05:31 AM)Ac...   Jun 21 2005, 03:31 PM
|- - vjkane2000   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 21 2005, 08:31 AM)Indee...   Jun 22 2005, 09:10 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Well, keep in mind that Cassini's 45 close fly...   Jun 22 2005, 10:52 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   The presentations from the June OPAG meeting are n...   Jun 29 2005, 06:02 PM
|- - imran   Thanks for the links, Bruce. I am surprised too t...   Jun 29 2005, 08:37 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   This hardly means that they're not considering...   Jun 29 2005, 10:28 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   And, for one recent JPL study of a Titan aerobot m...   Jun 29 2005, 10:31 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 29 2005, 03:31 PM)An...   Jun 30 2005, 05:20 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   Actually, we DO need more surface observation poin...   Jun 30 2005, 06:50 PM
- - tedstryk   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 30 2005, 06:50 PM)Ac...   Jun 30 2005, 06:58 PM
- - JRehling   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 30 2005, 11:50 AM)Ac...   Jun 30 2005, 07:15 PM
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