How NASA Saved a Camera From 370 Million Miles Away

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.org: The mission team of NASA's Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft executed a deep-space move in December 2023 to repair its JunoCam imager to capture photos of the Jovian moon Io. Results from the long-distance save were presented during a technical session on July 16 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nuclear & Space Radiation Effects Conference in Nashville. JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera. The optical unit for the camera is located outside a titanium-walled radiation vault, which protects sensitive electronic components for many of Juno's engineering and science instruments. This is a challenging location because Juno's travels carry it through the most intense planetary radiation fields in the solar system. While mission designers were confident JunoCam could operate through the first eight orbits of Jupiter, no one knew how long the instrument would last after that. Throughout Juno's first 34 orbits (its prime mission), JunoCam operated normally, returning images the team routinely incorporated into the mission's science papers. Then, during its 47th orbit, the imager began showing hints of radiation damage. By orbit 56, nearly all the images were corrupted.

While the team knew the issue might be tied to radiation, pinpointing what was specifically damaged within JunoCam was difficult from hundreds of millions of miles away. Clues pointed to a damaged voltage regulator that was vital to JunoCam's power supply. With few options for recovery, the team turned to a process called annealing, where a material is heated for a specified period before slowly cooling. Although the process is not well understood, the idea is that heating can reduce defects in the material. Soon after the annealing process finished, JunoCam began cranking out crisp images for the next several orbits. But Juno was flying deeper and deeper into the heart of Jupiter's radiation fields with each pass. By orbit 55, the imagery had again begun showing problems.

"After orbit 55, our images were full of streaks and noise," said JunoCam instrument lead Michael Ravine of Malin Space Science Systems. "We tried different schemes for processing the images to improve the quality, but nothing worked. With the close encounter of Io bearing down on us in a few weeks, it was Hail Mary time: The only thing left we hadn't tried was to crank JunoCam's heater all the way up and see if more extreme annealing would save us." Test images sent back to Earth during the annealing showed little improvement in the first week. Then, with the close approach of Io only days away, the images began to improve dramatically. By the time Juno came within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the volcanic moon's surface on Dec. 30, 2023, the images were almost as good as the day the camera launched, capturing detailed views of Io's north polar region that revealed mountain blocks covered in sulfur dioxide frosts rising sharply from the plains and previously uncharted volcanoes with extensive flow fields of lava. To date, the solar-powered spacecraft has orbited Jupiter 74 times. Recently, the image noise returned during Juno's 74th orbit.

RSS Feed Not Working Again ...

[kbahey]

Hey Slashdot,

The RSS feeds are not working again.

Right now, the feed looks like this [pastebin.com].

There are 6 more stories on the front page, newer than the SoftBank and OpenAI story.
The oldest that is not in the RSS feed is from last 23:30 on July 21st, and now it is 9:15am.

I reported this a few days ago [slashdot.org], and was marked 'Troll', and 'OffTopic'.
For those who are hasty with moderation points, how else can someone report a site issue, when Slashdot has no place for it?

Re:

[xaosflux]

Have you tried baking it for a few hours, then letting it cool off?

Re:

[omnichad]

Seems that when they get baked for a few hours they start posting RSS on pastebin. I think they've had enough baking for today.

[e-mail] not working either then?

[skam240]

I reported this a few days ago [slashdot.org], and was marked 'Troll', and 'OffTopic'.
For those who are hasty with moderation points, how else can someone report a site issue, when Slashdot has no place for it?

I'm not complaining about your post at all but is [e-mail] not working or not checked anymore? As I understand this email address is at least what is intended for stuff like this although I have no idea whether it's still active or checked or not.

Re:

[kbahey]

Thanks for pointing this out.

It will do, but it also lacks any community input ("Oh, I have this problem but solved it by ...", or "Works for me ...", and so on ...

I emailed them, and got an autoreponse.

And it seems the RSS just started working again.

Re:

[skam240]

And it seems the RSS just started working again.

Well then it seems like either way they likely heard you. Good work.

Re:

[RobinH]

Jupiter's atmosphere is mostly Hydrogen, which is not exactly rare on Earth [fuelcellsworks.com].

Helium

[Roger W Moore]

True, but about 10% of Jupiter's atmosphere is Helium which is extremely rare of Earth given that the Earth lacks the gravity to hold onto it and as a noble gas helium does not form compounts so the only supplies are mined and come from alpha particles that have slowed and captured electrons which is not exactly a fast production process.

Re:

[Gilmoure]

The real value of hydrocarbons available off earth will be the manufacture of soft/flexible components. All flexible seals, hoses, fabric, etc. will eventually need to be manufactured in space, assuming civilization manages to survive long enough to extend off planet.

Interesting craft

[burtosis]

I was surprised it used solar panels, they provide only 4-5% of the power on earth on a clear day. It orbits in a polar orbit, hence the radiation problems and why weak solar panels can supply enough power as it is relatively unobstructed at all times. Apparently it was just too costly to purchase the plutonium for a RTG in part because of the short supply at the time. Not so easy to run a heater with an anemic power supply, RTGs are definitely the more robust and effective choice for power supply in craft beyond mars.

Re:Interesting craft

[UnknowingFool]

Apparently it was just too costly to purchase the plutonium for a RTG in part because of the short supply at the time. Not so easy to run a heater with an anemic power supply, RTGs are definitely the more robust and effective choice for power supply in craft beyond mars.

The problem is not just cost. People forget plutonium used today is man-made as it does not naturally exist in nature on Earth in appreciable quantities. The US stopped making it in 1988 as the largest use is in nuclear weapons. Ironically the largest source since 1988 had been Russia but they stopped manufacturing it too. The end of the cold war meant there was no need to build new weapons. The US only restarted production in 2019 in small quantities for uses like RTG. Juno was launched in 2011.

Re: Interesting craft

[subie]

Very interesting, thanks

Re:

[necro81]

Apparently it was just too costly to purchase the plutonium for a RTG in part because of the short supply at the time

Supply and cost go hand-in-hand in normal economics. But for Pu-238, normal economics go out the window: it's not like you can just dig more from the ground, like iron or lithium. As a synthetic radioisotope - a byproduct of nuclear weapons production, no less - when the supply dries up that's it, there is no more to be purchased at any price. You can make more, but NASA has no capabilit

Try hitting it

[doconnor]

So they basically did the equivalent of hitting until it starting working again.

Re:

[Tablizer]

eHan

Re:

[CityZen]

This seems a little bit more like the towel trick for the Xbox 360.

Meanwhile

[necro81]

Trump's proposed NASA budget cuts science funding in half [space.com]. Were the cuts enacted, Juno - a well-functioning spacecraft the taxpayers have already paid for, and which has greatly exceeded its original mission - would probably be killed (deorbited into Jupiter). That's just one of dozens of existing science missions on the chopping block [astronomy.com], including Chandra, OSIRIS, New Horizons, MAVEN. Numerous missions in development are also threatened. See also: Planetary Society [planetary.org] and Voyager Declaration [standupforscience.net].

Re:

[necro81]

Well, the article is about how the scrappy operators of the Juno mission are doing clever and interesting things to keep the mission going well past its original goals. The Juno mission's original cost was more than $1 billion. Keeping it running costs ~$10 million/yr. It's a bargain, and cutting it won't make a dint in the US budget. And yet, that is exactly what Orange Man wants to do: kill the mission and destroy the asset. It's akin to saying "I've bought this one-of-a-kind car for $100k, but I'm f

Excellent.

[yo303]

This article is exactly why I am still on Slashdot.

Malin Space Science Systems

[buzz_mccool]

Junocam https://www.msss.com/all_projects/junocam.php/ [msss.com]

Re:

[buzz_mccool]

Sorry, try https://www.msss.com/all_projects/junocam.php [msss.com]

Sounds like a good research project

[Tablizer]

the team turned to a process called annealing, where a material is heated for a specified period before slowly cooling. Although the process is not well understood, the idea is that heating can reduce defects in the material.

Why is it poorly understood? Sounds like a phenomenon itchin' to be studied.

Re:

[njvack]

Why is it poorly understood? Sounds like a phenomenon itchin' to be studied.

Studying it would be expensive and the "don't put electronics in extreme radiation environments" solution to the problem nearly always works.

Not saying as it isn't cool; it sounds cool as hell to figure out. But there are only so many people to figure things out...