
Jupiter Awaits Arrival of Juno - dnetesn
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1623/?lang
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sohkamyung
For those interested in the timeline of Juno Orbit Insertion events, see this
post [1] at the Planetary Society

[1] [http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2016/0616123...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2016/06161235-timeline-of-juno-jupiter-orbit-insertion.html)

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po
Also good is the linked-to JunoCam explainer [1] which includes a nice map
showing the orbits and explains what we could expect to see in terms of
imaging data coming from the mission and when. Hint: images are not the main
reason they sent Juno.

[1] [http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2016/0609060...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2016/06090600-what-to-expect-from-junocam.html)

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SoulMan
Vote and comment on where to point JunoCam and which features to image on
Jupiter using the new JunoCam web platform on this site.
[https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/](https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/)

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jessriedel
This NASA documentary is a little hokey, but it gives a reasonable intro to
the mission and each of the instruments.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka6OERznXh4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka6OERznXh4)

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zump
NASA is getting better at PR. This is arriving July 4th!

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salgernon
As did Mars pathfinder, 1997.

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imglorp
Maybe not so much a coincidence then? You'd think both of these orbital
alignments are a little beyond our control. Or maybe there was enough fuel
budget both times to get +/\- a couple days to get the insertion dates we
wanted.

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mikeash
Yes, there's usually enough flexibility to move things around a bit. Robert
Farquhar, the man who planned the trajectory of ISEE-3 (the craft re-contacted
by amateurs during an Earth flyby two years ago) enjoyed arranging his
missions so that important milestones happened on the birthdays or
anniversaries of friends and family.

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krylon
I'm still a little disappointed they chose to send a probe to Jupiter instead
of Uranus or Neptune.

I am certain the Jovian system is madly interesting and there's lots and lots
of fascinating things to be discovered. But on the other hand, Galileo has
already spent several years exploring it, while we still know comparatively
little about Uranus and Neptune.

Having said that, I am, of course, excited to see what new and interesting
things Juno will allow us to find out. In a way, there are no boring places in
our solar system.

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iwwr
Something like Juno could only work as far as Jupiter, maybe Saturn, but at
some point the size of the solar panels grows too unwieldy. Jupiter gets 1/25
the sunlight of Earth, Saturn is 1/100, Uranus is 1/400 and Neptune 1/900.

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krylon
I did not know Juno used solar panels.

I know that a probe to explore the ice giants would require an RTG (or some
other energy source other than solar panels).

Still, I think it would be _very_ interesting to study the ice giants and the
respective moons and ring systems more closely.

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simonh
It's the first probe going out that far that uses panels, all the previous
ones use RTGs. When it was built (launched in 2011) there was a severe Pu-238
shortage; it's still in short supply, but back in production (as of 2013) and
so some future long range RTG powered missions might be back on the table.

~~~
krylon
Oh well, I guess Uranus will still be around in few years. ;-)

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exDM69
But is Uranus or Neptune in a position that can be reached with gravity
assists?

And even if it is, orbital insertion requires a lot of energy, so a flyby is
probably the only possible option.

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krylon
Mmmh. I can still hope, can't I?

I mean, really, assuming that all of the practical problems of building a
probe and getting it to Uranus or Neptune were solved, wouldn't you just
_love_ to send it there and explore the $expletive out of them?

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exDM69
Well you can either keep up (false?) hopes or do the maths and see where the
planets are located (pretty easy) and are there any potential gravity assists
(not as easy, but there are software packages that help).

If you just want to eyeball the situation, take a look at Celestia.

I think orbital insertion is out of question for the outer planets using
conventional space craft propulsion because the difference between high radial
velocity required to reach the planet and the low tangential velocity of the
planet itself is greater than the spacecraft's delta-v budget.

But there won't be another Voyager mission in our lifetimes, a suitable
arrangement of planets happens only once in 400 years or so.

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gmoes
I watched this NASA "tweetup" a few years back. It's a bit long, but has some
very interesting discussions about the science and engineering of the project.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWgZ_TmL0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWgZ_TmL0M)

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yawaramin
Cute name, Juno.

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vanderZwan
As a Julia user, this was really[0] confusing[1] for a second. Although now it
makes me wonder if the Juno IDE for Julia was named that way because of the
mythological Jupiter/Juno connection too.

[0] [http://jupyter.org/](http://jupyter.org/)

[1] [http://junolab.org/](http://junolab.org/)

