Jovial NASA says Juno flyby a success

It was a hats-in-the-air weekend at NASA, with the agency announcing its Juno probe's first close-up Jupiter fly-by was a success. The probe has now started the agonisingly slow process of downloading the data collected on its Sunday swoop (closest approach was 13:44 UTC, August 28; adjust as your local timezone dictates). …

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats to the Juno team!

I can't wait to see the pictures, and watch out for the Monolith!

[Tony S]

"...even more to begin to comprehend what Juno and Jupiter are trying to tell us”.

Get orff my laaand!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be much more interested about what Juno is telling Jupiter with all those satellite-lovers orbiting around... I imagine Jupiter will be happy then the wife-probe will crash eventually.

[Yesnomaybe]

Brilliant stuff.

With 35 flypasts we should be able to see cloud formations moving. Looking forward to that.

[Rocketist]

Re: Brilliant stuff.

Oh yeah, judging by the old fables (nay oral accounts), there's going to be a lot of cloud about Jupiter, as long as Juno is near!

[Forget It]

just love it

Spooky all this happens at the very time

Jupiter is in conjunction with Venus (just love it)

that made their combo very bright in the

sky at sunset.

[Rocketist]

A seriously souped-up V8?

Hmm, a boy racer with an engine turning at about 6 million RPM? Can't see what could possibly go wrong with that one! Who's for giving it a try?

[DropBear]

Re: A seriously souped-up V8?

Well, it is traveling at 208,000 km/h - two thirds of the speed of light! I mean... wait... I'm having second thoughts...

[iRadiate]

Re: A seriously souped-up V8?

2/3 the speed of light?

[Cynic_999]

Re: A seriously souped-up V8?

Speed of light is 300,000 km per *second* so your calculation is not quite correct ...

[ravenviz]

Re: A seriously souped-up V8?

Er, look at the icon, plus the supporting turn of phrase...

[Rocketist]

All instruments trained on Jupiter -

Just as a side note, isn't "train" a wonderful word? It can mean:

- to point something

- to practice

- a thingy on wheels that gets pulled

I'm pretty sure I haven't found half the different meanings yet (no mind to check up on wiktionary or so). Just thought it all rather enjoyable.

[DNTP]

Re: All instruments trained on Jupiter -

-to instruct or teach

-to taunt a series of hostile NPCs into following one's PC to create a chaotic and/or humorous game situation

-Pat Monahan's rock band

Ironically, one of Train's biggest hits is titled Drops of Jupiter.

[The Nazz]

With greetings from Yorkshire

May i offer :

t'rain : piss wet through precipitation, mostly downward but occasionally near horizontal.

[Florida1920]

Absolutely no offense to other countries

But at least in space exploration, I think America is still pretty great.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Apart from that

...any specs on the Juno computer anywhere?

CPU, RAM, tech, notes by development team, project management...

[Simon Harris]

Re: Apart from that

Some of that information is here

http://spaceflight101.com/juno/spacecraft-information/

[Killing Time]

Surface ?

Is that the first discovery?

[Mark Exclamation]

Exposure

At 208,000 km/h, how does the camera get a non-blurred image? There's not enough light for a high-speed shutter exposure.

[Rocketist]

Re: Exposure

Same way a photographer does of a passing boy racer with a V8. Follow the object by panning the camera (in this case the entire spacecraft).

[cray74]

Re: Exposure

At 208,000 km/h, how does the camera get a non-blurred image?

Space probes and satellites have used three techniques to compensate for motion:

1) Rotate the spacecraft (e.g., New Horizons, Pioneers 10 & 11)

2) Rotate a scan platform (e.g., Voyagers' scan platform)

3) Rotate part of the camera (e.g., Lunar Orbiters and KH-7s shifted their film during exposure; KH-8s had a steering mirror)

[MAF]

Downloads will take days

But to be fair it is difficult to get ultra-fast Broadband in the sticks... :-)

Seriously, impressive stuff that really is Rocket Science.

[John Smith 19]

That's an approach speed of Mach 169

Which is pretty fast.

As for download speed....

I keep thinking some of those Mars orbiters are geared up to do data relay from ground probes.

Now they'd only be available when one of them had LOS with Juno and the clocks would have to be really tightly synched but in principal you could (if the hardware allows it) have it switched to some kind of high data rate in bursts, raising the average data rate, possibly quite a lot.