NASA's Juno roars off to Jupiter
NASA's Juno spacecraft blasted off this afternoon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at the beginning of its five-year journey to Jupiter. The launch of Juno this afternoon. Pic: NASA TV The 4-ton Juno rose heavenwards at 16:25 GMT atop a bloody big United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket, boasting a quintet of solid …
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is it me or...
that arm at the end of one of the solar panels looks like a hard drive read write head?
Position it
a few nanometres above one of the rings* and you can read all the Jovian porn.
*yes it does.
Dunno if I should read El Reg. anymore - doing my ribcage in.
The 4-ton Juno rose heavenwards at 16:25 GMT atop a bloody big United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket, boasting a quintet of solid booster strap-ons. Despite this extra lifting grunt,...
Thanks Lester. Another couple of cracked ribs....;-)
Special projects bureau
Vulture 3 - Earth orbit
Vulture 4 - Moon orbit
Vulture 5 - Mars landing (we have to see what those skid marks are and the X-prize for a Moon landing will have gone by now)
Vulture 6 - Jupiter orbit
Hey, Lester - you've got 4 years to get to Jupiter orbit!
Eco-nasa
Nasa PR droid on the radio this morning emphasising how it used renewable energy in the form of solar panels and so was eco-friendly unlike RTG powered probes before.
Omitted to mention how much dead-dinosaur a 350ton Atlas rocket uses to get it up there
Not to mention
How eco-friendly does a probe in orbit around Jupiter need to be anyway? It could have a dirty great coal fire going up there and it would actually be *more* eco-friendly (less coal that could be burnt here)
Hear this
Minuteman, a freaking ICBM, with multiple thermo nuclear warheads is said to be more environmentally friendly than previous versions.
I can't find it on Wikipedia, perhaps I saw it somewhere else.
Environmentalist guys should get this absurd levels of "environmentally correct" BS they forced everyone into.
Btw, I really don't really care how much harm (!) a single Saturn does. What matters is, how much harm that idiot causes when buying a car instead of using city bus where he travels everyday. That is the real subject nobody touches.
green ICBMs...
Didn't the yanks also change the refrigerants in their ICBMs to CFC-free ones, so in the event of a major thermonuclear war they wouldn't affect the environment quite so much?
When....
...will Ann Summers sponsor one of these babies?
Mine's the one with batteries in the pockets
Maybe it's me but..
... I thought the magnetometer looked like a suspender clip (garter clipe
...but it's actually a magnetometer
I think that you will find that it is actually a bottle opener in case the probe discovers rogue bottles of Newcastle Brown.
it occurs to me...
that it might be a good idea to not ditch the probe into Jupiter. but leave it in orbit with some sort of line out, so future probes can use the solar panels....
Also, strictly speaking, a hard drive read/write head *is* a magnetometer :P
Something Special
Will it also be looking for a black slab 1x4x9 ? Hope the computer has no conflicting instructions.
Hmm...
I've heard they had to develop a new type of real-time OS for the craft, because it's Io bound.
Ahem...
Lego Gallileo on board
"NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft will carry the 1.5-inch likeness of Galileo Galilei, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno to Jupiter when the spacecraft launches this Friday, Aug. 5. The inclusion of the three mini-statues, or figurines, is part of a joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the partnership between NASA and the LEGO Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics."
Lego Gallileo on board...
I for one welcome the return of our Great LEGO Overlords returning in 10,000 years time highly improved over their predecessors looking for bits of roof tiles, windows and wheels scattered around the house.
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