Juno at Jupiter, mission events as they unfold |
Juno at Jupiter, mission events as they unfold |
Jul 5 2016, 07:53 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
This topic will consist of discussion of Juno operations post-JOI until end of mission, currently anticipated in Feb 2018.
-------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Sep 30 2019, 03:05 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 48 Joined: 8-August 12 Member No.: 6507 |
Just a short mission update. Today Juno does it longest burn to date in orbit (the so called Apojove 22 maneuver). We do an Apojove maneuver most orbits to tweak the Perijove timing and aim point, but this one is quite large to avoid an eclipse of Jupiter. When we entered Jupiter orbit we essentially were at a right angle to the orbit (i.e if Jupiter were at midnight relative to the sun in the orbit Juno is orbiting around Jupiter in a circle around the axis from the sun to Jupiter, passing over the poles to stay in the sun at all times). This is critical in that we never want to go behind Jupiter (very important for a solar powered vehicle). Now that we are 3 plus years from JOI Jupiter has moved 90 degrees in its orbit and will eclipse Juno if no burn is done (~18 hr eclipse, no way to survive that). Thus we are doing a 11 hr burn today on the monoprop thrusters (would have been minutes on the main engine, but that is not an option for use now). No real risk of issues juts a very long day (and night) of operations. It is not a critical single chance burn like JOI was (since we have a secondary and even a tertiary burn planned if needed) but the maneuver itself is critical to proceeding to Perijove 23. For those that really study Juno's orbit yes, we are not at Apojove yet. Doing the burn a little early leaves us less propellant penalty for the later options v.s doing the primary burn right at Apojove. Should be a interesting (but long and boring)evening and night as we watch this occur. Sorry there is not NASA TV feed of this like there was for JOI (would be quite boring actually watching the Doppler plot slowly grow to show progress). I will not be allowed to keep a running status since we in ops are not allowed to provide public status but look for a press release soon on the results.
Very interesting that this eclipse avoidance comes just after the Io eclipse of Jupiter, but it makes sense in that we are in a point of the orbit to view that angle of Io on Jupiter relative to the sun. Go Juno! |
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