The record-breaking solar-powered Juno spacecraft has survived its toughest test so far and is now in orbit around Jupiter.
In January this year, NASA’s Juno broke the record for humanity’s most distant solar powered spacecraft. At that point, it was approximately 793 million kilometers from the sun.
Juno successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit during a 35-minute engine burn yesterday afternoon Australian time.
Soon after the burn was completed, the craft was positioned to face the sun to enable Juno’s 18,698 individual solar cells to start producing energy.
While Juno’s solar array is quite large (overall spacecraft span is around 20 metres), the solar cells will collectively only generate an output of 500 watts given the distance Juno is from the sun. Sunlight intensity at Jupiter is 25 times less than here on Earth. Still, enough energy will be generated to power 29 sensors and nine instruments.
The attempt to enter Jupiter’s orbit was particularly perilous. Nobody was 100% certain if Juno could survive the radiation and turbulence of being in such close proximity to the gas giant and the team only had one chance to get the maneuver right.
Sending a solar-powered space craft to Jupiter wasn’t just a situation of seeing if it could be done – and a good thing that is too since the craft has a price tag of around USD $1.1 billion.
“With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter’s massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planet’s interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.
While the official data collection phase begins in October, Mr. Bolton says the Juno team have figured out a way to start earlier than that.
“Which when you’re talking about the single biggest planetary body in the solar system is a really good thing. There is a lot to see and do here,” he stated.
However, we may need to wait until late August to see Juno’s first close-up happy snaps of Jupiter.
Juno will orbit Jupiter for 20 months (37 orbits) and its mission will end with a deorbit in February 2018.
Further details on the Juno mission can be viewed here.
Trivia: Aboard Juno are three Lego figurines representing the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Galileo Galilei
