NASA‘s Juno probe continues to restore memory on Jupiter after a data outage disrupted communications between the spacecraft and its operators on Earth following a flyby of the giant planet in December. Juno’s final flyby of Jupiter, its 47th close flyby of the planet, was completed on December 14. But as its operators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory received science data from the flyby, they found they no longer had direct access to the probe’s memory.
The team successfully restarted Juno’s computer and put the spacecraft into “safe mode” on December 17, with only essential systems operating as a precaution. As of NASA’s Dec. 22 update, the steps the team has taken to restore Juno’s science data have progressed positively. Juno operators are now successfully downloading flyby data.
NASA wrote “The science data from the Solar Probe’s last flyby of Jupiter and its moon Io appear to be intact. It is currently believed that the disruption was caused when Juno flew through the intense radiation of part of Jupiter’s magnetosphere. There is no indication that the radiation spike has corrupted the data from its close approach to Jupiter or its flyby of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io”.
The remaining data from Juno’s latest flyby is expected to be beamed back to Earth in the next few days, when operators can assess whether it has been disturbed. Juno left Earth in August 2011, traveled 1.7 million miles and entered orbit around the gas giant planet 5 years later on July 4, 2016. As the first spacecraft to see through Jupiter’s thick clouds, Juno’s goal was to answer the questions on the composition and origin of Jupiter.
Juno takes 53 Earth days to orbit Jupiter, with its primary Juno mission requiring 35 orbits during which it collected 3 terabytes of science data and some incredible images of Jupiter and its moons. Because Jupiter is thought to be the oldest world in the solar system, learning more about it could reveal information about the formation of the solar system itself.
The data changed much of what planetary scientists thought about Jupiter’s atmosphere and interior by revealing a layer of atmospheric weather extending far beyond its water clouds, as well as a deep interior with a rarefied heavy element core. The spacecraft’s primary mission ended in July, and the probe is expected to continue its extended science operations until at least 2025, according to the Planetary Society. The spacecraft was expected to exit safe mode this week and make its next flyby of Jupiter on January 22, 2023.
Read Now :<strong>Zomato Ltd co-founder Gunjan Patidar has resigned from his post</strong>
