Deep Space 1 (DS1) was a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft which flew by an asteroid and a comet. It was part of the New Millennium Program, dedicated to testing advanced technologies.
Pioneer 10 is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Pioneer 10 became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. The space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc.
Ulysses was a robotic space probe whose primary mission was to orbit the Sun and study it at all latitudes. It was launched in 1990 and made three "fast latitude scans" of the Sun in 1994/1995, 2000/2001, and 2007/2008. In addition, the probe studied several comets. Ulysses was a joint venture of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), under leadership of ESA with participation from Canada's National Research Council. The last day for mission operations on Ulysses was 30 June 2009.
In orbital mechanics and aerospace engineering, a gravitational slingshot, gravity assist maneuver, or swing-by is the use of the relative movement and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense.
The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of American spacecraft communication ground segment facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that supports NASA's interplanetary spacecraft missions. It also performs radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the Solar System and the universe, and supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. DSN is part of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Juno is a NASA space probe orbiting the planet Jupiter. It was built by Lockheed Martin and is operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011 UTC, as part of the New Frontiers program. Juno entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on July 5, 2016, UTC, to begin a scientific investigation of the planet. After completing its mission, Juno will be intentionally deorbited into Jupiter's atmosphere.
The flyby anomaly is a discrepancy between current scientific models and the actual increase in speed observed during a planetary flyby by a spacecraft. In multiple cases, spacecraft have been observed to gain greater speed than scientists had predicted, but thus far no convincing explanation has been found. This anomaly has been observed as shifts in the S-band and X-band Doppler and ranging telemetry. The largest discrepancy noticed during a flyby has been 13 mm/s.
JunoCam is the visible-light camera/telescope onboard NASA's Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter. The camera is operated by the JunoCam Digital Electronics Assembly (JDEA). Both the camera and JDEA were built by Malin Space Science Systems. JunoCam takes a swath of imaging as the spacecraft rotates; the camera is fixed to the spacecraft, so as it rotates, it gets one sweep of observation. It has a field of view of 58 degrees with four filters.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is an interplanetary spacecraft in development by the European Space Agency (ESA) with Airbus Defence and Space as the main contractor. The mission will study three of Jupiter's Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa all of which are thought to have significant bodies of liquid water beneath their surfaces, making them potentially habitable environments.
Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) is an instrument on the Juno spacecraft in orbit of the planet Jupiter. It is an image spectrometer and was contributed by Italy. Similar instruments are on ESA Rosetta, Venus Express, and Cassini-Huygens missions. The primary goal of JIRAM is to probe the upper layers of Jupiter's atmosphere down to pressures of 5–7 bars at infrared wavelengths in the 2–5 μm interval using an imager and a spectrometer. The Jupiter's atmosphere and auroral regions are targeted for study. In particular it has been designed to study the dynamics and chemistry in the atmosphere, perhaps determining the how Jovian hot spots form.
JEDI (Jupiter Energetic-particle Detector Instrument) is an instrument on the Juno spacecraft orbiting planet Jupiter. JEDI coordinates with the several other space physics instruments on the Juno spacecraft to characterize and understand the space environment of Jupiter's polar regions, and specifically to understand the generation of Jupiter's powerful aurora. It is part of a suite of instruments to study the magnetosphere of Jupiter. JEDI consists of three identical detectors that use microchannel plates and foil layers to detect the energy, angle, and types of ion within a certain range. It can detect electrons between 40 and 500 keV (Kilo electron-volts), and hydrogen and oxygen from a few tens of keV to less than 1000 keV (1 MeV). JEDI uses radiation hardened Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC)s. JEDI was turned on in January 2016 while still en route to Jupiter to also study interplanetary space. JEDI uses solid state detectors (SSD's) to measure the total energy (E) of both the ions and the electrons. The MCP anodes and the SSD arrays are configured to determine the directions of arrivals of the incoming charged particles. The instruments also use fast triple coincidence and optimum shielding to suppress penetrating background radiation and incoming UV foreground.
The Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) was a miniaturized, ultra-precise mercury-ion atomic clock for precise radio navigation in deep space. DSAC was designed to be orders of magnitude more stable than existing navigation clocks, with a drift of no more than 1 nanosecond in 10 days. It is expected that a DSAC would incur no more than 1 microsecond of error in 10 years of operations. Data from DSAC is expected to improve the precision of deep space navigation, and enable more efficient use of tracking networks. The project was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and it was deployed as part of the U.S. Air Force's Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on 25 June 2019.
Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) is an instrument that detects and measures ions and electrons around the spacecraft. It is a suite of detectors on the Juno Jupiter orbiter. JADE includes JADE-E, JADE-I, and the EBox. JADE-E and JADE-I are sensors that are spread out on the spacecraft, and the EBox is located inside the Juno Radiation Vault. EBox stands for Electronics Box. JADE-E is for detecting electrons from 0.1 to 100 keV, and there are three JADE-E sensors on Juno. JADE-I is for detecting ions from 5 eV to 50 keV. It is designed to return data in situ on Jupiter's auroral region and magnetospheric plasmas, by observing electrons and ions in this region. It is primarily focused on Jupiter, but it was turned on in January 2016 while still en route to study inter-planetary space.
Magnetometer (MAG) is an instrument suite on the Juno orbiter for planet Jupiter. The MAG instrument includes both the Fluxgate Magnetometer (FGM) and Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC) instruments. There two sets of MAG instrument suites, and they are both positioned on the far end of three solar panel array booms. Each MAG instrument suite observes the same swath of Jupiter, and by having two sets of instruments, determining what signal is from the planet and what is from spacecraft is supported. Avoiding signals from the spacecraft is another reason MAG is placed at the end of the solar panel boom, about 10 m and 12 m away from the central body of the Juno spacecraft.
UVS, known as the Ultraviolet Spectrograph or Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer is the name of an instrument on the Juno orbiter for Jupiter. The instrument is an imaging spectrometer that observes the ultraviolet range of light wavelengths, which is shorter wavelengths than visible light but longer than X-rays. Specifically, it is focused on making remote observations of the aurora, detecting the emissions of gases such as hydrogen in the far-ultraviolet. UVS will observes light from as short a wavelength as 70 nm up to 200 nm, which is in the extreme and far ultraviolet range of light. The source of aurora emissions of Jupiter is one of the goals of the instrument. UVS is one of many instruments on Juno, but it is in particular designed to operate in conjunction with JADE, which observes high-energy particles. With both instruments operating together, both the UV emissions and high-energy particles at the same place and time can be synthesized. This supports the Goal of determining the source of the Jovian magnetic field. There has been a problem understanding the Jovian aurora, ever since Chandra determined X-rays were coming not from, as it was thought Io's orbit but from the polar regions. Every 45 minutes an X-ray hot-spot pulsates, corroborated by a similar previous detection in radio emissions by Galileo and Cassini spacecraft. One theory is that its related to the solar wind. The mystery is not that there are X-rays coming Jupiter, which has been known for decades, as detected by previous X-ray observatories, but rather why with the Chandra observation, that pulse was coming from the north polar region.
Microwave Radiometer (MWR) is an instrument on the Juno orbiter sent to planet Jupiter. MWR is a multi-wavelength microwave radiometer for making observations of Jupiter's deep atmosphere. MWR can observe radiation from 1.37 to 50 cm in wavelength, from 600 MHz to 22 GHz in frequencies. This supports its goal of observing the previously unseen atmospheric features and chemical abundances hundreds of miles/km into Jupiter's atmosphere. MWR is designed to detect six different frequencies in that range using separate antennas.
Waves is an experiment on the Juno spacecraft to study radio and plasma waves. It is part of collection of various types of instruments and experiments on the spacecraft; Waves is oriented towards understanding fields and particles in Jupiter's magnetosphere. Waves is on board the unmanned Juno spacecraft, which was launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in the summer of 2016. The major focus of study for Waves is Jupiter's magnetosphere, which if could be seen from Earth would be about twice the size of a full moon. It has a tear drop shape, and that tail extends away from the Sun by at least 5 AU. The Waves instrument is designed to help understand the interaction between Jupiter's atmosphere, its magnetic field, its magnetosphere, and to understand Jupiter's auroras. It is designed to detect radio frequencies from 50 Hz up to 40,000,000 Hz (40 MHz), and magnetic fields from 50 Hz to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz). It has two main sensors a dipole antenna and a magnetic search coil. The dipole antenna has two whip antenna's that extend 2.8 meters and they are attached to the main body of the spacecraft. This sensor has been compared to a rabbit ears set-top TV antenna. The search coil is overall a mu metal rod 15 cm (6 in) length with a fine copper wire wound 10,000 times around it. There are also two frequency receivers that each cover certain bands. Data handling is done by two radiation hardened systems on a chip. The data handling units are located inside the Juno Radiation Vault. Waves was allocated 410 Mbits of data per science orbit.
Juno Radiation Vault is a compartment inside the Juno spacecraft that houses much of the probe's electronics and computers, and is intended to offer increased protection of radiation to the contents as the spacecraft endures the radiation environment at planet Jupiter. The Juno Radiation Vault is roughly a cube, with walls made of 1 cm thick titanium metal, and each side having an area of about a square meter. The vault weighs about 200 kg (500 lbs). Inside the vault are the main command and data handling and power control boxes, along with 20 other electronic boxes. The vault should reduce the radiation exposure by about 800 times, as the spacecraft is exposed to an anticipated 20 million rads of radiation It does not stop all radiation, but significantly reduces it in order to limit damage to the spacecraft's electronics.
OCEANUS is a mission concept conceived in 2016 and presented in 2017 as a potential future contestant as a New Frontiers program mission to the planet Uranus. The concept was developed by the Astronautical engineering students of Purdue University during the 2017 NASA/JPL Planetary Science Summer School. OCEANUS is an orbiter, which would enable a detailed study of the structure of the planet's magnetosphere and interior structure that would not be possible with a flyby mission.
