Juno mission at Jupiter

[Ray McCarthy]

As I write, the orbital insertion is 7 days off

Countdown to Jupiter: Juno just seven days from orbit

Much of its roughly 3,640 kg (8,000 pound) weight is shielding to protect the probe from the radiation of the planet's much-more-intense version of Earth's Van Allen belts.

total original weight was 3625kg, that includes the craft, fuel and oxidizer. The craft itself is 1593kg, so the electronics vault shielding, which is 200kg comes in at 12.5% of the crafts weight. This excludes the shielding for cabling and instruments outside the vault.

I look forward to hear more about this mission over the next 7 months approx.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Me too. Was reading about this today. 'Deep view' looks fascinating.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Oh pretty lights!
Jupiter's throwing a firework party for Juno – and Hubble's peeking in

Jupiter’s auroras are self-generated and always present, unlike the auroras on Earth. The planet’s spin – a rotation every 10 hours – drags its magnetic fields and causes electricity to crackle at its poles. A whirlpool of charged particles are whisked around by the electric charge and smack into other particles in Jupiter’s particles, emitting light as they decelerate.

Other sources of charged particles come from the solar wind and Jupiter’s moon, Io, which expels particles from its volcanoes.

"These auroras are very dramatic and among the most active I have ever seen", said Jonathan Nichols, principal investigator of the study and physics lecturer at the University of Leicester. "It almost seems as if Jupiter is throwing a firework party for the imminent arrival of Juno."

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Is Jupiter just a ball of gas? Nasa's Juno spacecraft arrives at 'biggest, baddest' planet in solar system

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Less than 12 hours to go as I write:

At 4:18am BST [on Tuesday 5th], NASA’s Juno spacecraft will begin its orbital insertion burn, a move that will decelerate its velocity – slow enough to be captured by Jupiter’s gravitational field.

The burn will initiate when the spacecraft is at its closest approach to the gas giant and will last 35 minutes. It has to be perfectly executed. All other instruments will be turned off to prevent any malfunctions that could interfere with the burn.

By Jove! NASA's Juno prepares to slip into orbit around Jupiter

The orbital insertion burn is not the only danger, however, and the spacecraft will have to battle its way through Jupiter’s hostile magnetosphere. It has to be able to withstand the onslaught of electrically charged particles whipped up by the planet’s powerful magnetic field in order to measure that field and study Jupiter’s auroras.
Juno will also be looking for water and ammonia in the atmosphere. Its Gravity Space experiment will be probing beneath Jupiter’s atmosphere to map the planet’s gravitational field and study its internal structure to find out if the planet has a solid core.
Whether Juno makes it to its destination is now out of the scientists’ hands. Last Thursday evening, mission controllers launched “ji4040” – a command that launched the spacecraft into autopilot mode.

EDIT

Commentator says

It'll all be over before 4:18AM BST, that's the time Earth should receive a tone confirming start of burn. The 48 minute transmission delay means the 35 minute burn should have ended before NASA knows it has begin.

BBC
Juno mission: Jupiter probe nears critical orbit manoeuvre - BBC News

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Rocket firing successfully inserted Juno to orbit.

The spacecraft has three Lego mini-fig crew members. The Roman god Jupiter, who drew a veil of cloud around himself to obscure his mischief, his wife Juno, who was able to see through the clouds and a telescope-wielding Galileo Galilei, who discovered four of Jupiter’s moons.

Image courtesy of NASA for free press use. Issued 4th July 2016. Taken by the JunoCam instrument on NASA's Juno spacecraft before Juno's instruments were powered down in preparation for firing rocket to achieve orbit.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Fantastic news.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Welcome to Jupiter

 

[Ray McCarthy]

So far the agency [NASA] reports that five instruments are up and running and the rest should be online soon. Most will remain on for the two-year mission, and possibly beyond, but the JunoCam visual light telescope is expected to die after about six months due to the radioactive and magnetic emissions from Jupiter.

The other instrumentation will be longer lasting. Juno carries two particle detectors, a magnetometer to map the planet's internal magnetic field, two tools to analyze the Jovian aurora, a six-antenna radiometer, an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, and a tool for measuring gravity via radio waves.

Juno probe spins up its sonic screwdrivers for Jupiter flyby

 

[Mirannan]

I hate to be snarky about this, but I hope the engineers were wearing the right sort of shirt when the news of successful Jupiter orbit insertion came in.