Juno Gave NASA Controllers Fairly the Scare Throughout Latest Jupiter Flyby

For practically a decade, a big probe has braved the tough Jovian surroundings to carry us mesmerizing, close-up views of Jupiter and its moons. However generally, the fuel big will get the most effective of it. The Juno mission just lately went into an surprising protected mode throughout a scheduled flyby of Jupiter, quickly powering down its science devices.

Juno was making its 71st shut method to Jupiter when it entered its precautionary standing twice on April 4 because it was flying by the fuel big, NASA just lately revealed. It’s not clear precisely what could have brought about Juno to enter protected mode, however the area company believes it could have occurred because the spacecraft flew by way of Jupiter’s radiation belts.

Mission operations reestablished knowledge transmission with Juno and the information indicated that the spacecraft first went into protected mode at 5:17 a.m. ET, which was about an hour forward of its scheduled flyby. Juno entered protected mode once more round 45 minutes after perijove, or its shut method to Jupiter. Throughout protected mode, nonessential capabilities on the spacecraft are suspended. Juno powered down its science devices whereas preserving its communication and energy administration techniques on. The spacecraft rebooted its laptop, and pointed its antennas towards Earth for communication.

Protected mode is activated when the spacecraft detects an anomaly. Though the workforce remains to be ready to investigate the information to determine precisely what went incorrect, early indications means that Juno was flying by way of Jupiter’s radiation belts when its protected mode was activated.

Jupiter’s magnetic area is 20,000 instances stronger than Earth’s and the strongest of all of the planets within the photo voltaic system. The planet’s magnetosphere traps charged particles after which speeds them up like a particle accelerator, in keeping with the European Space Agency. The best fluxes of energetic particles are discovered within the doughnut-shaped belts round Jupiter’s equator, its radiation belts.

Juno boasts a titanium radiation vault to dam high-energy particles from impacting the spacecraft, however that’s generally not sufficient. The spacecraft went into protected mode 4 instances since arriving at Jupiter in 2016.

After reestablishing communication with Juno, the workforce is working to transmit the information collected earlier than and after it entered protected mode because the spacecraft conducts flight software program diagnostics, in keeping with NASA.

Juno is scheduled for an upcoming flyby of Jupiter on Might 7, throughout which it’s set to hold out a detailed method of the Jovian moon Io at a distance of about 55,300 miles (89,000 kilometers). Hopefully the spacecraft manages to maintain its science devices turned on this time.