Juno probe breaks interplanetary distance record for solar-powered spacecraft

Grey Havoc

Grey Havoc

ACCESS: USAP
Senior Member
Joined
9 October 2009
Messages
19,805
Reaction score
10,296
fbpet0ckyysljhdhqn7z.jpg

http://gizmodo.com/all-hail-juno-our-record-breaking-solar-powered-emmiss-1752844953​

NASA’s Juno spacecraft crossed the record-breaking 493 million miles from the Sun at 2pm ET on Wednesday January 13, 2016. This is the farthest any solar-powered explorer has ventured into deep space, which is usually occupied soley by robots running on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). The previous record-holder is the European Space Agency’s still-functioning Rosetta spacecraft when it first intercepted comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in October 2012. Before that, no solar powered craft had even made it past the asteroid belts.

Now Juno is going to keep pushing the record further, out to Jupiter. Once it reaches the gas giant, the explorer will be serving as a proof of concept for a new, more efficient solar power system. At up to 517 million miles from the Sun, the spacecraft is basking in only 1/25th of the sunlight we recieve on Earth. But what the panels get, they use well—Juno has a 28 percent conversion rate turning sunlight into power.

Juno’s solar power arrays so big, they were nearly too heavy to launch in 2011. The 4 ton spaceraft has three 30-foot long solar arrays with 18,698 individual solar cells. While they’ll only generate 500 watts of power out by Jupiter, they’re big enough that they’d generate 14 kilowatts here on Earth.

Yet they’re just barely enough to keep the spacecraft fully operational at distant Jupiter. If we want to use solar power to explore planets even further away, even just to the next planet over at Saturn, we’re going to need better technology to make more efficient, lighter panels that can be even larger, paired with more powerful rockets.
Click to expand...
 
PIA13746_ip.jpg

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia13746

http://www.solardaily.com/reports/Juno_Spacecraft_Breaks_Solar_Power_Distance_Record_999.html​
 
Grey Havoc said:
Yet they’re just barely enough to keep the spacecraft fully operational at distant Jupiter. If we want to use solar power to explore planets even further away, even just to the next planet over at Saturn, we’re going to need better technology to make more efficient, lighter panels that can be even larger, paired with more powerful rockets.
Click to expand...
[/quote]

Or use an RTG and not have to build the bigger rockets. ;)
 
It is very interesting that NASA decided to use solar cells for Juno when they used RTGs for Galileo back in the 1990s.
 
Juno was a proof of concept. NASA likes being able to avoid RTGs.

And the way things are going, it'll be cheaper to use solar panels and a bigger rocket, than to use an RTG and a smaller rocket.
 
RTGs are necessary for some missions, which is why ORNL just restarted Pu-238 production. But they're expensive: the New Horizons RTG cost $65 million. You can buy a pretty big launcher for that kind of money.
RTGs can also cause controversy.

By switching to solar panels when possible, the small amount of Pu-238 available can be hoarded for the missions that need it, giving NASA more opportunities to fly missions.
 
Came across some images taken by Juno . Just mind-blowing :
pia22944.jpg

from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/images/index.html

+ this vid :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-2eaF-lEn8
 
These Jupiter pics are some of the first where you can actually see depth to the clouds.
 

Attachments

  • 35177719165_bdb1836670_o.png
    35177719165_bdb1836670_o.png
    4.7 MB · Views: 116
These new photos from Juno are absolutely amazing. I cannot wait to see what the Juno team release next.
 
The one I posted is about a year and a half old. There have been some excellent Juno pics for some time.
 
sferrin said:
Machdiamond said:
If you want your daily fix of these stunning images and videos of Jupiter, they show up first at this link:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showforum=82
Click to expand...

Always thought a balloon floating at high altitude on Jupiter would be awesome.
Click to expand...

Agree, but not floating toooo close though. Even though you must know it already, here is explaining why, just the way I like it :
https://youtu.be/ZUr3fDNHEM8
 
I have always been fascinated by Jupiter, could just stare at those cloud formations forever.
Forget hunting for little green men, there is so much more to discover on exoplanets than life. I can't imagine what some of those super hot gas giant exoplanets close to their parent stars must look like. They may have some incredible atmospheric features.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom