Ganymede Flyby - PJ34, June 7, 2021 Options

[volcanopele]

Now that we are a month out from the Ganymede encounter, I'm creating a special thread just for this encounter.

A few basic facts about the encounter:

The encounter takes place June 7, 2021 at 16:56:07.972 UTC at an altitude of 1042 km from Ganymede's surface. The central latitude and longitude of the close approach point is 23.58 N, 57.62 W. The inbound leg occurs over Ganymede's nightside while the outbound leg covers the dayside, allowing for imaging of Ganymede's leading and sub-Jovian hemispheres.



The best imaging opportunities occur after closest approach, with dayside imaging possible between +00:15 and +06:45 at distances between 1050 km and 5690 km above Ganymede's surface (though the first pass will be along the terminator and the last pass will only capture a bit of the bright limb). This allows for JunoCAM images with resolutions between 0.71 and 3.82 km. The best imaging opportunity in my opinion is centered at +01:45 when Juno is 1,515 km above Ganymede. This allows for imaging at around 1 km/pixel, doesn't cover the terminator or too much of the limb, and allows for detailed imaging of Perrine Regio and Tros crater, a prominent ray crater within Phrygia Sulcus. A Cosmographia screen shot of the center time for this pass is below.



I've updated my simulation video of the encounter, now making use of updated trajectory and now has real orientation information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_UO3EFB6l0