back to article Juno turns around and heads off to graze Jupiter's clouds

The Juno is on its way back to Jupiter after successfully reaching 'apojove', the high point of its first orbit of the gas giant. And now the craft is heading for its closest encounter with Jupiter. Juno's mission plan called for it to enter the planet's gravitational sphere of influence and slow down by making two “capture …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Precessing

    I'm wondering what will make the successive orbits precess like that. Is it the slight gas drag each time the spacecraft passes near the planet?

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Precessing

      Does that precession look like about 38° total?

      Jupiter will complete 38.3° of an orbit of the sun during the science orbits (461 days). Depending on the inertial reference frame for the diagram, that might explain the apparent precession.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Precessing

        I thought of that, but the probe's orbit is polar, so any deflection due to Jupiter's orbital progress would appear as a change in the probe's orbital plane, not in the major axis direction. Also the science orbits are depicted as slightly smaller each time, which would fit with the idea of losing a little velocity on each pass.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Precessing

          Nasa has a great 3d sim app for visualizing the orbits here.

          After it finally starts, click the "Juno Mission" button in the upper right and then go to "Juno's Trajectories" on the left.

          1. Julz

            Re: Precessing

            It looks sun synchronous

  2. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Brilliant science

    Mankind at it's best.

    1. Magani
      Headmaster

      Re: Brilliant science

      "Mankind at it's best."

      Thumbs up for the sentiment.

      Thumbs down for the (obviously accidental) grammar/spelling anomaly.

      Cheers,

      The Apostrophe Police

  3. Tom 64

    de-orbit date

    I doubt NASA will chose to de-orbit this probe in January 2018.

    The last orbiter there was operational for years on its nuclear battery. Juno is powered by solar panels, so could potentially last much longer. Unless it gets de-funded or fried by radiation.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: de-orbit date

      It's the second one. The main telescope's CCD chip is expected to survive just a few orbits.

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Re: de-orbit date

        And it's already in the mission plan. There's science to be done in them thar clouds! (perhaps)

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: de-orbit date

      Maybe, but probably not. Juno is supposed to be incinerated in Jupiter's atmosphere in order to prevent any possible contamination of Jupiter's moons. While there will be still power*, at some point there won't be enough fuel left for any manouvering. If everything that's yet to happen goes better than expected, they might be able to expand the mission for a couple of days/weeks, but that's it.

      *This has been discussed at length in several threads in the comments. Wear and tear of solar panels in space, pros and cons of RTGs, etc.

  4. DeathStation 9000
    Joke

    I expect more accuracy from NASA myself...

    "On Monday, UK time.."

    On the plus side, it's more accurate than using a month as a unit of time.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Actually, speaking as an 'expert'...

    > 'the probe reached the apogee of the first capture orbit, dubbed “apojove” by NASA'

    I think you'll find that NASA is correct here. 'Apogee' is the highest point of an orbit around the Earth specifically. 'Apoapsis' is the generic high-point of any orbit, 'apojove' is the high-point of an orbit around Jupiter specifically.

    Somebody has not played the requisite amount of Kerbal Space Program to correctly report on orbital maneuvers it seems ;)

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      I understand what you are saying, but where is the logic in giving a planet-specific name to the same mathematical position ?

      Are we going to end up reading about apoton, apoturn, apocure, apomede, apores, apoDA14 etc, in other words one apo- for every single planet/dwarf/moon/asteroid we have a satellite orbiting ?

      That'll get tiresome rather quickly, I think.

      1. You aint sin me, roit
        Coat

        Apojove giving you a headache?

        See the apothecary.

        1. Androgynous Cow Herd

          Re: Apojove giving you a headache?

          I did. When I told him about it, he fairly burst out into apoplexy.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Apojove giving you a headache?

            You should both apologize!

        2. Swarthy
          Coat

          Re: Apojove giving you a headache?

          See the apothecary.

          He's too fat away; I may go to the perithecary.

      2. Captain DaFt

        In orbit?

        There's an apo for that. :)

  6. Yer Mother You Will

    Someone will be mighty upset if it all goes rat-shit.

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