New "Juno" Mission To Jupiter Announced

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.

Comments

Re:Where does it go next?

[umberto unity]

That's not how orbits work. After the 32nd orbit, Juno will enter its 33rd orbit. Orbits are inertial, and only require fuel for station-keeping. On this orbit, however, no orbital perturbations will cleverly keep Juno out of the worst of Jupiter's tremendous magnetic fields, which trap cosmic rays, solar wind particles, and other ionizing radiation, and so Juno's electronics will begin to degrade. No longer able to speak to us, Juno will keep orbiting until the orbital trajectory itself begins to degrade and it spirals down into the planet to burn up in the atmosphere.