NASA’s Juno Probe Reconnects One Week After Eighth Jupiter Flyby Following Solar Conjunction

Earlier this week, NASA’s Juno probe officially completed its eighth science flyby of Jupiter, establishing contact with the space agency seven days after the flyby took place due to a solar conjunction.

According to a report from Space.com, Juno made its way by Jupiter on October 24, but was not able to transmit any data back to Earth because the sun was interfering with communication between both planets. That forced NASA’s scientists to wait one week before they were briefed on what had taken place during Juno’s eighth flyby.

In a statement quoted by Space.com, new Juno project manager Ed Hirst said that all of the data collected during the probe’s journey was stored and remained intact despite the solar conjunction-related delay.

“All science instruments and the spacecraft’s JunoCam were operating, and the new data are now being transmitted to Earth and being delivered into the hands of our science team,” he added.

As noted on a press release from NASA, the Juno probe sent back data about Jupiter’s cloud tops, as well as more information on the gas giant’s composition, but no further details have been made available so far. Instead, the space agency focused on the announcement of Hirst as Juno’s new project manager. According to NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist Hirst had worked on Juno from its preliminary design phase through its 2011 launch from Earth and 2016 arrival at Jupiter. He replaced erstwhile project manager Rick Nybakken, who was moved to JPL’s Office of Safety and Mission Success after being appointed as the office’s deputy director.

NASA also explained why the Juno probe had to wait a week before sending data on the eighth science flyby. Solar conjunctions are periods when the path of communication between Earth and another planet is unusually close to the sun. This forces a transmission moratorium where engineers send instructions before the start of such events, and store the data onboard a spacecraft to transmit to Earth once the solar conjunction is completed.

.@NASAJuno successfully completed its 8th science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Tuesday, Oct. 24: https://t.co/rEqJjDVIN5 pic.twitter.com/3eKgLhdwfw

— NASA (@NASA) November 3, 2017

A previous report from the Inquisitr also tackled a similar solar conjunction, this time involving Mars. A NASA official explained that the moratorium on communications is necessary because communications can get garbled, and spacecraft run the risk of acting on corrupted, inaccurate commands. The last solar conjunction in Jupiter took place in August, 2015, almost one year before Juno arrived at the planet on July 4, 2016, with another one due to take place in November 2018.

Meanwhile, NASA’s Juno probe will be making its ninth science flyby on December 16, with the spacecraft on track to keep studying Jupiter through 2018, and to eventually enter the gas giant’s atmosphere. There is, however, a chance that the mission might be extended beyond the four remaining science flybys expected to take place between now and 2018.

[Featured Image by Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock]