Ready for a close-up! Nasa craft reaches Jupiter
THEY had put a man on the Moon and a robot on Mars. But yesterday Nasa scientists were celebrating the success of their most difficult mission – putting a spacecraft into close orbit around Jupiter.
After a five-year, 1.8billion-mile voyage across the solar system, Juno completed its journey with a perilous manoeuvre.
Its British-made engine fired for 35 minutes, slowing the craft’s 150,000mph approach to exactly 1,211mph so it could be captured by Jupiter’s huge gravitational field. It had to avoid the worst of the giant planet’s radiation belts and dust rings to go into orbit 3,100 miles above the cloudy surface.
One false move and the £890million mission would have ended in premature disaster.
But Juno completed its journey without a hitch and at 4.53am British time a signal was
‘It is flying the UK flag on its engine’
received confirming the success of the manoeuvre. Nasa scientists celebrated at their California HQ, as did staff from MoogISP, the engineering firm in Wescott, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, that built Juno’s engine. Juno’s chief scientist Scott Bolton said: ‘We’ve conquered Jupiter. Now the fun begins.’ Congratulating his team, he added: ‘You’ve just done the hardest thing Nasa’s ever done.’
Moog-ISP’s chief engineer Ian Coxhill said: ‘Juno is flying the UK flag on its engine. It was absolutely thrilling to see the engine do its job. It gave us a massive sense of pride.’
No other spacecraft has dared to venture so close to Jupiter, which emits radiation powerful enough to fry normal electronic circuitry. Juno, named after the Roman goddess who could see through the clouds, has a 400lb titanium vault to protect the instruments that will send back data to Nasa, their messages taking nearly 50 minutes to reach Earth. The craft’s three massive wings are covered in solar panels, making it the most distant solar-powered spacecraft.
Juno, which was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida in August 2011, will spend about 20 months in orbit.
It is now in a large ellipse around the planet that takes just over 53 days to complete. A camera, JunoCam, will begin taking first close-up images next month and on-board instruments will be tested before a second burn of Juno’s engine in mid-October.
This will put the craft in a much closer 14day orbit. It will then begin its main data collection as it circles Jupiter more than 30 times looking for clues to the formation of the planet and the whole solar system.
At the end of its mission, Juno will be put into a dive, burning up in Jupiter’s atmosphere to prevent the craft accidentally crashing into and contaminating Europa, an icy moon which may be home to bacterial life.