Juno Jupiter Probe Won't Move Into Shorter Orbit After All (space.com)

NASA announced today that their Juno spacecraft will not move into a closer orbit around Jupiter as originally planned. "Juno slipped into a highly elliptical, 53-Earth-day-long orbit around Jupiter when it arrived at the giant planet on July 4, 2016," reports Space.com. From their report: The probe was supposed to perform an engine burn in October to reduce its orbital period to 14 days, but an issue with two helium valves postponed that maneuver. The engine burn has now been canceled, meaning Juno will stay where it is through the end of its mission. "During a thorough review, we looked at multiple scenarios that would place Juno in a shorter-period orbit, but there was concern that another main engine burn could result in a less-than-desirable orbit," Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "The bottom line is, a burn represented a risk to completion of Juno's science objectives." But Juno should still be able to accomplish its mission goals in the longer orbit, NASA officials said. In fact, the 53-day path will allow the probe to perform some "bonus science" in the outer regions of Jupiter's magnetosphere, they added.

Comments

Too bad we don't have 1977 technologies anymore

[hcs_$reboot]

Voyagers and the like did way better in 1977.

Re:Too bad we don't have 1977 technologies anymore

[blind biker]

I know your post will get a lot of hate, but there's truth to it: Voyager 1 still took the most impressive close-up photographs of Jupiter. Shit like this http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/im...
And the images Voyager took of Saturn are pretty epic, too: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ga...

In their shortsightedness, they will say these aren't of great scientific value. A more sophisticated mind understands that the scientific importance of these images was enormous, because it inspire hundreds, if not thousands, to do science as their calling.

Re:So, was Obama born in Kenya?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama is a Muslim from Kenya.