Juno development, launch, and cruise, Including Earth flyby imaging Oct 9 2013 Options

[PhilHorzempa]

I thought that it was time to start a new thread devoted to the JUNO Jupiter
Orbiter mission. This New Frontiers Mission #2 seems to be a "stealth" project
with little information available on the Web. In fact, the official NASA JUNO
web site is quite pitiful. It contains the minimal amount of information on what
seems to be an intriguing mission, in terms of both science and engineering.

Does the UMSF community have information on this mission that has not
been widely seen before?

Another Phil

[Mariner9]

I had a chance to talk to one of the engineers on the project at the JPL open house in May. It was fascinating stuff, particulalry the plan to use the radiometers to help determine if Jupiter's belt zones above and below the equator are linked to matching internal structures inside Jupiter.

It was so off the wall, I don't fully remember the specifics, and not even sure how to describe it properly. Essentially, there is a hypothosis that for each major atmospheric belt, there is a corresponding belt opposite the equator that is powered by the same internal dynamics. AKA ... if there is a belt at +33 degrees lattitude, then the belt at -33 degrees is part of the same structure. The belt at +42 degrees is connected to the belt at -42 degrees and so on. (I'm making up the numbers just for the example).

I was also able to confirm my suspicion that not every orbit will be devoted to gravity mapping. I asked the guy and he confirmed that the high gain antenna has to be pointed directly at Earth during the Periapsis pass of the orbit, and when that is being done the vehicle rotation axis will be such that the Junocam and radiometers are not pointing at Jupiter. So there are dedicated orbits for the gravity mapping, and other orbits for the radiometry.

He also said that just a single orbit would give them the data they need for the Radiometry experiment, but naturally they plan on at least 4-5 just to be sure their data is confirmed.

Juno is a fascinating mission.... but I'm not entirely sure how to explain it to the general public. Even my eyes partially glaze over when you start talking about exploration of the polar magnetosphere, and I at least have some idea what that means.

[JRehling]

I had a chance to talk to one of the engineers on the project at the JPL open house in May. It was fascinating stuff, particulalry the plan to use the radiometers to help determine if Jupiter's belt zones above and below the equator are linked to matching internal structures inside Jupiter.

It was so off the wall, I don't fully remember the specifics, and not even sure how to describe it properly. Essentially, there is a hypothosis that for each major atmospheric belt, there is a corresponding belt opposite the equator that is powered by the same internal dynamics. AKA ... if there is a belt at +33 degrees lattitude, then the belt at -33 degrees is part of the same structure. The belt at +42 degrees is connected to the belt at -42 degrees and so on. (I'm making up the numbers just for the example).

If I match your description with what I have already read, I think the question is between two alternative hypotheses:

1) The belts are "surface" phenomena only, not penetrating very deeply into the atmosphere. The northern and southern hemispheres have similar patterns because they are similar structurally: two different examples of dynamics with similar parameters.

2) The belts are where deep concentric "cylinders" happen to intersect the surface. The belt at +33 is the ring where a north-south oriented internal cylinder slices into the upper clouds in the northern hemisphere; most of the cylinder is buried very deeply; the southern intersection of the cylinder and the "surface" is at -33.

I guess there's some complex integration of the gravitational data that can help settle the question. I can't picture that analysis, but there's plenty of time to read up on it before/if the data comes back.