Posted on 02/20/2017 5:49:02 PM PST by BenLurkin
NASA made the decision to leave the Juno spacecraft, currently orbiting Jupiter, in its current orbit that cycles around the gas giant every 53 days. The choice hinges on worries surrounding Juno's main engine, which displayed some out-of-the-ordinary readings as the team was preparing to shorten the probe's orbit.
“Juno is healthy, its science instruments are fully operational, and the data and images we’ve received are nothing short of amazing,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The decision to forego the burn is the right thing to do – preserving a valuable asset so that Juno can continue its exciting journey of discovery.”
Juno's original mission plan entailed arriving and Jupiter and performing two 53-day orbits. Then it would fire its main engine and reduce its orbit to 14 days, making more close passes of Jupiter. Those "science passes" are where most of the work gets done, but as the probe was preparing to shorten its orbit, the team found anomalous readings from the engine.
(Excerpt) Read more at waaytv.com ...
Gremlins ?
From Wiki:
Juno uses a bipropellant LEROS 1b main engine, manufactured by Moog Inc in Westcott, Buckinghamshire in England.[83] It uses hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for propulsion and provides a thrust of 645 newtons. The engine bell is enclosed in a debris shield fixed to the spacecraft body, and is used for major burns. For control of the vehicle’s orientation (attitude control) and to perform trajectory correction maneuvers, Juno utilizes a monopropellant reaction control system (RCS) consisting of twelve small thrusters that are mounted on four engine modules.[79]
Moog is an American company and has a lot of experience with spacecraft.
So if they are not going to fire the main engine does that mean the spacecraft will remain in Jupiter’s orbit for the rest of its life?
Good thing they decided to leave Juno where it is.
Moving it would have been a real PIA!
They had planned to put it on a collision course with Jupiter so that it could never crash into one of the Jovian moons.
This was to prevent any chance of contamination by organisms of Terran origin.
Interesting
I wonder how much roadside assistance will cost
“Gremlins ?”
Nope. Dwellers ...
see “The Algebraist” by Iain M Banks
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