NASA Extends Juno Mission for at Least Three Years

NASA Extends Juno Mission for at Least Three Years

NASA’s Juno probe has been studying Jupiter for almost two years, but the mission has not gone exactly to plan. It’s taking Juno longer than NASA expected to map the gas giant, and operations were scheduled to cease this summer. Luckily, NASA has secured an additional $1 billion in funding to extend the mission for at least three more years.

Juno arrived in the Jovian system back in July 2016 after launching from Earth in 2011. NASA started Juno off in a nice, leisurely 53-day highly eccentric orbit of Jupiter. Since the planet has intense radiation belts that can fry delicate internal components, mission managers wanted the probe to spend as little time as possible in close proximity to it. Originally, NASA intended to fire up Juno’s engines and shorten the orbit to just 14 days. However, that didn’t work out.

As NASA prepared to tighten Juno’s orbit, the team detected potential issues with the probe’s engines. Rather than risk damage that could cripple the probe, NASA opted to leave Juno in its higher orbit. That ensured Juno would remain operational, but it also introduced a considerable delay in the primary science mission. Juno is in a polar orbit, so each time it swoops around Jupiter, it sees a different part of the planet up close. The longer orbit means a roughly four-fold increase in the amount of time it will take to map all of Jupiter.

NASA Extends Juno Mission for at Least Three Years

Juno is destined to crash into Jupiter at the end of its mission, and that was supposed to happen this summer. With only a fraction of the science mission complete, the agency needed a reprieve. NASA was authorized to spend the additional money last month, but has only now confirmed publicly that Juno has been saved.

The extension means Juno can continue operating through September 2021. That’s enough time to finish all the mission’s critical science objectives. So, we can expect a lot more awesome science to come out of Juno over the next few years. We’ve already learned about how Jupiter’s polar vortices operate and how deep the Great Red Spot goes. Imagine what we’ll learn in the next three years.

When the time does come to retire Juno, NASA will still fly it into Jupiter. This will ensure it doesn’t one day crash on one of Jupiter’s moons, some of which could host alien life. We’ll need to send other missions to look into that.

Continue reading

SpaceX, NASA Send 4 Astronauts to ISS in First Commercial Crew Mission
SpaceX, NASA Send 4 Astronauts to ISS in First Commercial Crew Mission

After years of development, the Commercial Crew Program has succeeded.

Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Completes Mission, Returns Asteroid Sample to Earth
Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Completes Mission, Returns Asteroid Sample to Earth

After six years in space, the Hayabusa2 sample container landed on Earth, providing scientists with the first significant samples collected directly from an asteroid.

Asteroid Mission Successfully Collected Samples, Japan Confirms
Asteroid Mission Successfully Collected Samples, Japan Confirms

Japan's Hayabusa2 mission wrapped up last week when the sample container parachuted down in Australia. The mission certainly looked like a success at every step along the way, but the true test is whether or not it collected the sample it flew out there to get.

Astronomers Have Detected a Planet’s Radio Emissions 51 Light-Years Away
Astronomers Have Detected a Planet’s Radio Emissions 51 Light-Years Away

The researchers claim this marks the first time an exoplanet has been detected in the radio bands.