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New "Juno" Mission To Jupiter Announced
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Nov 24, 2008 08:03 PM
from the by-jove dept.
from the by-jove dept.
Riding with Robots writes "Today NASA announced it is officially proceeding with the Juno robotic mission to Jupiter. Scheduled to launch in August 2011 and reach the largest planet in 2016, the spacecraft will orbit the planet 32 times, skimming about 4,800 kilometers over the planet's cloud tops for about a year. The mission will focus on Jupiter's structure and evolution, and not on Europa or the other icy moons that may hide oceans under their surfaces — a disappointment if you ask me. Then again, all planetary missions so far have turned up amazing images and surprising scientific discoveries, and I doubt this expedition will be any different." We discussed NASA's deliberation of its short list a few days back.
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NASA Exploring 8 New Space Expeditions 106 comments
coondoggie writes "NASA is trying to decide among eight space exploration missions that include further exploring Venus and comet composition as well landing on an asteroid or examining the space around Jupiter. The space agency today began accepting solicitations for these space exploration opportunities and will ultimately pick one of them to begin perusing in 2009 with a launch date targeted at 2018. The solicitations and ultimate expedition are part of NASA's New Frontiers program, which has as its main objective to explore the solar system with medium-class spacecraft missions that will conduct high-quality, focused scientific investigations, NASA said. The first New Frontiers mission was selected in 2003 and will result in the launch of Juno, a Jupiter polar orbiter mission set to blast off in 2011."
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Disappointment Indeed (Score:2, Interesting)
The mission will focus on Jupiter's structure and evolution, and not on Europa or the other icy moons that may hide oceans under their surfaces - a disappointment if you ask me.
... especially since we could be using those icy moons as giant particle detectors (PDF) [arxiv.org] for neutrinos and other cosmic rays.
Dude! Weren't you paying attention? (Score:2)
The message was: [youtube.com]
Shame (Score:2)
I'm sure they, like all of us want to go after the seeds of life.
Re:Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on what we do (don't) know, I'd say we can learn a lot more from Jupiter than Europa.
Our understanding of Jupiter and other gas giants is really lacking. The only hope of discovery of any kind on Europa is life. But that is a really small chance, and therefore a very big gamble compared to the large set of questions we know will be answered by starting to explore Jupiter.
Parent
Re:Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the researchers there are certainly interested in the potential for life, but ultimately the "possible signs of life" banners are there to keep people interested. I'd love to see more of my tax dollars go towards probing every single body in this system - not to look for what may be useful decades or centuries later, but just to see what's there - which usually gives more interesting results.
Some day, maybe within our lifetimes, a probe will be sent to a nearby star, regardless of how many years such a mission would take. That mission will be expensive, and it will require public support. The ideal pitch is that it would be our very first foray to another star - a significant event in human history in itself. Judging by the past few decades, though, they'll have to resort to "Could There Be Life At Centauri" or similar talk. Sometimes it takes sci-fi dreams to get most people to support basic science.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing is, we're so damn close on the moons of Jupiter. All we need to do is break the fucking ice and take a look. Odds are, if there's life, there's something obvious, not just unicellular (though we can easily check for that.)
I'm sure that Jupiter has a lot to teach us, but the moons are just about the only place we've found that actually have a reasonable chance of supporting extra-terrestrial life. I sort of feel like clearing that up is the next step, then we can go back to poking things and seeing
Re:Shame (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shame (Score:4, Funny)
Obviously all life on the sun would have to be nocturnal.
Parent
Re:Shame (Score:4, Interesting)
What they're trying to answer is "How did our planets form?" It's hard to imagine any findings on Europa (even life) that would significantly out-weigh an answer to this question, although some would probably rival it in importance. But given that this mission can almost certainly address the questions it's being sent up to answer and given that the technological hurdles of studying Europa properly are so high, this is a much more sensible mission to send at the moment, in my view.
Parent
Where does it go next? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where does it go next? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Where does it go next? (Score:4, Interesting)
And Io. And this deorbit was particularly interesting considering that one cancelled mission plan would have maneuvered Galileo through a volcanic plume on Io.
Parent
Juno... (Score:4, Funny)
Hopefully Obama will reverse this (Score:2)
I know the Bush administration can be rather heartless; but sending pregnant teenagers into space? I just pray the first mission isn't scheduled until after January 20th.
Use of all (Score:2)
Not all planetary missions have turned up amazing images. Roughly half [wikipedia.org] of the Mars missions failed to reach the planet and become operational. So those didn't complete anything at all amazing. Even of the ones that did, I doubt you could say that ALL of them resulted in amazing images and surprising discoveries. Unless, of course, you count
Not News (Score:2)
Er, not to deflate the coolness of this mission (and it is a damn cool mission), but Juno was selected in 2005. All that this is saying is that it hasn't been derailed, although their wording obscures this. See the mission website [wisc.edu].
Once again, NASA's press office shows that it's keen on issuing a hyped release about any old thing.
Really interesting spacecraft design and mission (Score:5, Interesting)
So I took a few seconds to RTFA and I found (or didn't find):
It uses SOLAR PANELS to power this thing all the way to Jupiter. That'll beat the previous record holder (I think the DAWN mission to Vesta and Ceres) for use of solar power away from the sun. TFA says that other than a 10 min period in earth's shadow during a flyby it will always be in sunlight.
1) So does that mean it will be in a sun synchronous polar orbit at Jupiter? Won't that compromise the data collection opportunities it has? (It'll never be able to look "straight down" with the sun at its back).
I couldn't find any details about how it intends to enter and then adjust its jupiter-centric polar orbit. I see no mention of using gravity assist WITHIN the jupiter system using any of the galilean satellites to reduce the amount of delta V for insertion (and adjustments). Is this because they are going into a polar orbit and won't be in the plane of the satellite's orbits? Nor did I see any mention of some fancy aero-braking (like the Mars orbiters use). (Of course I guess ion drives (like those used in DAWN) wouldn't be practical because the probe would have to "linger" too long in Jupiter's radiation belts while it slowly shed velocity).
2) So will they be using some standard chemical propellents with a long storage time (like Cassini)? Will a large part of the spacecraft be fuel or does its "unique highly elliptical" orbit not require too much delta V to enter?
Anyway, sounds like a cool mission, that won't cost too much or take too long to get there (uses solar power so no expensive nukes, uses 1 gravity assist and a medium size Atlas booster). Hopefully the camera has a high enough resolution to take a picture of Medusa! (Please see Arthur C. Clarke's "Meeting with Medusa").
Re: (Score:3)
I mean... she's a fine actress, but is she a qualified astronaut?
I think I speak for all tax-payers when I say we'd be willing to waive that requirement in this case.
Re: (Score:2)
Rest assured, friend. I can think of one or two things she could do in zero gravity that would be *well* worth the tax money. And, for those things, she's more than qualified.
You should've gone to China, you know (Score:2)
'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say there are some large gasbags here on earth...
Oh no (Score:2, Funny)