Juno spacecraft to attempt polar Jupiter Orbit Insertion 7/4

[Thebobo]

NASA's Jupiter Orbit Insertion "trailer" <--- Use full screen and turn up volume, well done for a NASA video.

10:30 p.m., Monday, July 4 the Juno space craft makes a dangerous polar orbit insertion hopefully avoiding the worse of the bands of intense radiation. (see video/traier) Live Coverage of the Juno Orbit Insertion at Jupiter @ NASA TV

 

[dainthomas]

3100 miles?!? Wow, that should be some excellent footage!

 

[Thebobo]

3100 miles?!? Wow, that should be some excellent footage!

Yea its going to be awesome. During the insertion of the first orbit all the non critical equipment will be turned off, so we'll have to wait for the second orbit to see pictures, if it all works. Juno is the fastest man make object ever, traveling at over 165,000 mph, so the rocket engine burn to back it into orbit is critical.

 

[sandorski]

Oh great, July 4th will soon be Jupiters Independence Day.... ib4 I41WelcomeOurNewAlienOverlords

 

[Thebobo]

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross wrote a song to celebrate the Juno mission. A short video was made for part of it,

Short Video

Full song

A chilling soundscape of unspeakable beauty from the Oscar®-winning duo. Like their soundtrack work, “Juno” is deeply cinematic—from its feverish atmospherics to its chains of glassy melody to its haunting textures, which sound like the surface of some distant planet must feel. “Juno” was recorded to celebrate NASA’s Juno Mission, which arrives in Jupiter’s orbit on 4 July, 2016.
...

 

[Ruptga]

All you could want to know and more, complete with pictures and video.

 

[SKORPI0]

Hubble captures vivid auroras in Jupiter’s atmosphere

Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras — stunning light shows in a planet’s atmosphere — on the poles of the largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter.
This observation programme is perfectly timed as NASA’s Juno spacecraft is currently in the solar wind near Jupiter and will enter the orbit of the planet in early July 2016. While Hubble is observing
and measuring the auroras on Jupiter, Juno is measuring the properties of the solar wind itself; a perfect collaboration between a telescope and a space probe [2].

 

[Linux23]

Woah. They better have all of their calculations correct. This is cool stuff but I noticed the first probe arrived in 1 year. This one took 4+ years?

 

[IronWing]

I'm glad they decided to go with solar panels on this one. It would have sucked if NASA had messed up Jupiter's radiation belts with a nuke.

 

[Paratus]

I'm glad they decided to go with solar panels on this one. It would have sucked if NASA had messed up Jupiter's radiation belts with a nuke.

We're actually running out of the specific plutonium isotope used in RTGs. The previous Jupiter probe JIMO was going to use a 100kw nuclear reactor and ion engines but congress killed it

So JUNO got large high efficiency arrays that will only generate about 500w at Jupiter vs 14kw in Earth orbit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This is pretty incredible, can't wait to see some of the data and pictures they can manage to get.

The brains needed to do this stuff is crazy. Can appreciate that when playing KSP. In KSP you have all the tools like the map and maneuver nodes to pretty much do the hard work for you, but at NASA they have to know all the calculations and stuff. Pretty crazy stuff.

 

[SKORPI0]

We're actually running out of the specific plutonium isotope used in RTGs.

Plutonium-238

To the stars: After a 25 year hiatus, NASA restarts plutonium production

A few grams of the isotope have been created in tests at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee
in the past year, and the results suggest that the lab could scale up to 1.5 kg annually, in line to meet many, if not all, of NASA’s goals.

 

[Paratus]

Plutonium-238

To the stars: After a 25 year hiatus, NASA restarts plutonium production

Unfortunately as of 2015 production hasn't scaled upand the 50million cost of maintaining production is now coming out of NASAs planetary budget instead of from the DOE.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/within-nasa-a-plutonium-power-struggle/

But NASA’s supply is running out, and the Department of Energy’s efforts to make more at Oak Ridge are proceeding too sluggishly for comfort. Alarmed members of Congress have repeatedly demanded that NASA produce studies detailing just how much plutonium it needs, how it plans to acquire the plutonium, and what‘s at stake if the stockpile runs out, but to date, those demands have not passed into law. The latest push came in late July, when Senator Rob Portman and Representative Steve Stivers, both from Ohio, each introduced their own version of the Efficient Space Exploration Act, which mandates such reports. Both bills remain in committee and have not been brought to a formal vote.

Without sustained support and clear direction, NASA’s nascent efforts to shore up more Pu-238 could falter, and further missions to the darkest depths and corners of the solar system could become impossible. Unless, as some nuclear-shy mission planners advocate, NASA manages to use solar power farther out from the Sun than previously thought possible.

 

[Thebobo]

Little more then a day to go. Here is Audio from Juno as it crossed over into Jupiter's magnetosphere.

Juno Captures the "Roar" of Jupiter

 

[Red Squirrel]

Little more then a day to go. Here is Audio from Juno as it crossed over into Jupiter's magnetosphere.

Juno Captures the "Roar" of Jupiter

That's just HAL9000 sending in communications. He feels the mission has been compromised and opted to kick Dave out of the ship.

Seriously though that's pretty neat.

 

[NAC4EV]

Juno Spacecraft's July 4 Jupiter Arrival: What to Expect

 

[NAC4EV]

NASA's Jupiter Orbit Insertion

NASA's Jupiter Orbit Insertion

 

[umbrella39]

All you could want to know and more, complete with pictures and video.

Awesome link. Thanks...

 

[Artorias]

Plutonium-238

To the stars: After a 25 year hiatus, NASA restarts plutonium production

Only 1.5kg a year? How much does each spacecraft need for a trip that far and beyond?

 

[Ruptga]

Only 1.5kg a year? How much does each spacecraft need for a trip that far and beyond?

I don't know, but it entirely depends on the power budget and length of the mission. A basic probe might not need more than 100W (for example), but a major mission might call for 2500W, especially if it uses an ion engine. Also, keeping something out there for 2 years requires twice as much RTG fuel as one year does, because of half-lives, and it keeps doubling as you double the length of the mission.

 

[freeskier93]

Only 1.5kg a year? How much does each spacecraft need for a trip that far and beyond?

RTGs are really only good for "deep space" spacecraft or surface vehicles because they don't produce a lot of power. The one on Curiosity only produces 125 watts from 4.8kg of material, but compared to what they would get from solar it's more. The problem with solar on surface vehicles is panel size, they just can't be that big, and deep space vehicles will get to far away to be useful.

RTGs aren't really used on spacecraft, I think the Voyagers might be the only ones? For vehicles staying relatively close in the solar system you can use massive solar panels to get a lot of power. For example, the Dawn spacecraft (which has ion propulsion) has solar panels that produce 10kW.

 

[Oceanas]

RTGs aren't really used on spacecraft, I think the Voyagers might be the only ones?

In addition to the Voyagers: Ulysses, Cassini, New Horizons, Galileo, Pioneers 10 and 11, and several of the TRANSIT satellites (which orbited Earth).

 

[freeskier93]

In addition to the Voyagers: Ulysses, Cassini, New Horizons, Galileo, Pioneers 10 and 11, and several of the TRANSIT satellites (which orbited Earth).

Dang it, should have remembered New Horizons.

 

[Paratus]

I don't know, but it entirely depends on the power budget and length of the mission. A basic probe might not need more than 100W (for example), but a major mission might call for 2500W, especially if it uses an ion engine. Also, keeping something out there for 2 years requires twice as much RTG fuel as one year does, because of half-lives, and it keeps doubling as you double the length of the mission.

RTGs are really only good for "deep space" spacecraft or surface vehicles because they don't produce a lot of power. The one on Curiosity only produces 125 watts from 4.8kg of material, but compared to what they would get from solar it's more. The problem with solar on surface vehicles is panel size, they just can't be that big, and deep space vehicles will get to far away to be useful.

RTGs aren't really used on spacecraft, I think the Voyagers might be the only ones? For vehicles staying relatively close in the solar system you can use massive solar panels to get a lot of power. For example, the Dawn spacecraft (which has ion propulsion) has solar panels that produce 10kW.

PU-238 has a half-life of 87 years. Which means half of it is gone in 87 years. So your required mass doesn't double for each year of the mission.

It is an extremely strong alpha emitter. It can generate about 0.5W of thermal energy per gram of PU-238. The main issue is RTGs only covert about 7% of the thermal energy into electrical energy.

Any spacecraft going to the outer planets uses RTGs. Juno is remarkable because it's the furthest out we've used solar panels. Curiosity used them due to the size constraints on solar panels for Mars, dust issues, battery issues and the waste heat was beneficial to keep the electronics alive.

RTGs aren't the best for Ion drives due to the low conversion efficiency and high weight.


(I wouldn't mind having an RTG in a Tesla Model S so it can recharge itself - other than the potential radiation release of course)

 

[Charmonium]

According to wiki, thermionic converters can go up to 20% efficiency. But that's probably for newer designs.