“they are the best team! we just achieved the most complicated ever done NASA!” he said excitedly Scott Bolton, shortly after the spacecraft Juno managed to make orbit Jupiter.
And Bolton, the principal investigator for the mission, was not exaggerating.
Juno is a project where everything could go wrong. But everything went smoothly.
the complex adventure also began makes 13 years , when a group of scientists from the US aerospace company Lockheed Martin began thinking about how to build a device that could reach the largest, oldest and monstrous in our solar system planet.
“it is far away, so it is very dark; it is cold because it is dark, and is a vacuum cleaner, but no gravity, “he then explained to the magazine The Atlantic Kevin Rudolph, engineer of the center.
And the challenges do not were running out there.
scientists made a list of problems that could be found-an extreme radiation, little sunlight, low gravity and a massively magnetosphere and were attacking them one by one.
the radiation was one of their biggest concerns, because the probe should be strong enough to resist what would be the equivalent of 100 million dental X-rays.
This is capable of frying, without much difficulty, any electronic system.
And to protect all computers would travel to Jupiter had two options: to design an electronic able to withstand such radiation or protect systems that were already available
a safe ESPACI to
Designing something new, it would be like inventing a new technology, so they were inclined to find a way to seal the equipment available
But even that had problems. I protect each team separately or all together?
To make such a lightweight device as it could be It weighs about 1,587 kilos – decided to make a shield to protect all
<. p> “Basically, we build a safe” , Rudolph said.
So all the teams are in a bucket of 1mx1m, and covered with a layer of 1.2 cm titanium.
But not everything could be completely sealed.
After all, what is a NASA mission without the stunning images that we are accustomed?
The camera probe, named Juno Cam, had to bear the intense radiation. And for this, experts designed conical shields, as megaphones that extend beyond the lenses.
Just you receive radiation, but scientists estimate that operated for the first 7 flights of 32 is expected to do Juno.
a metal tank in a magnetic field
the other big enemy is the massive magnetosphere of Jupiter, which is not nothing but the result of the collision between the planet’s magnetic field and solar supersonic winds.
and Juno is basically a metal tank , so the electricity can will generate in the magnetic field was also another cause of insomnia for designers of the probe.
“If you are not careful, that electricity can be converted to high voltage, which can produce small sparks,” said Rudolph.
avoid this, each metal component is involved in several which in turn were covered with a thin layer of metal for electricity created with the magnetic field to flow the same everywhere insulating layers.
a maneuver 35 minutes
Another challenge was the engine that should take, because the hardest part of the mission were the 35 minutes that Juno was “slow” to stand in orbit.
the maneuver required turn Juno for the engine ignited in the opposite direction that was traveling so we can remove about 500m / s speed.
“the engine has to run at the time when Juno go into orbit, has that light up at the right time and continuously for at least 20 minutes, “he explained at the time the BBC Ian Coxhill, chief engineer of the British company Moog-ISP who built the Leros-1b motor.
And if the engines had not worked at the right time, or had done so for a sufficient period, then this adventure of US $ 1,100 million was lost in deep space.
“Surely there will be many nerves” had predicted Coxhill, thinking multiple calculations and hours of work necessary to reach this stage of the mission.
The Leros engine, however, had already signaled its reliability at other times of long journey of Juno , lighting twice in 2012 to refine the path of the ship.
and all previous phases of the mission, from takeoff to the approach to Jupiter, passing maneuvers in deep space and trajectory corrections also had demonstrated the correctness of the calculations.
13 phases
in fact, to make manageable as complex mission NASA divided into a total of 13 stages, each with different duration and key moments.
and all the years of design, calculations and planning needed to overcome were those who made it possible for us now take a look at Jupiter and try to solve some of the mysteries of how our planet and solar system formed.
“the risks they overcame are impressive, the more you know about the mission more you realize how difficult it is “, said during the press conference in which the arrival of Juno to Jupiter Diane Brown, head of the project was announced.
Now Juno is in a large elliptical that will take 53 days to complete and mid-October there will be a second “brake” to reduce the orbit to 14 days.
that’s when you really begin to discover the secrets of the giant.
And once their mission, Juno will be directed toward the center of the planet where s it was destroyed by the relentless atmosphere of this gas giant.
for now, however, Brown and his colleagues celebrate having completed the most difficult part.
“Knowing that tonight we can go to bed without worrying about what it can happen tomorrow, it’s amazing “, said the head of the most complex NASA mission.
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