←back to thread

New images of Jupiter

(www.missionjuno.swri.edu)
428 points 0xFACEFEED | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
lofaszvanitt ◴[] No.42061299[source]
How hard is it to send something there to give us a 24/7 feed of the planet from a fixed angle?
replies(2): >>42061730 #>>42066123 #
CableNinja ◴[] No.42061730[source]
Pretty difficult.

Jupiters sphere of influence is full of radiation, meaning the sat needs a lot of shielding which makes it very heavy. Additionally, you need a lot of thrust to not only get to Jupiter, but to be able to get into a geosync orbit around a planet other than earth, so youre gonna need a lot of fuel. And finally, time... Europa Clipper just left earth, it will be 8 years before it arrives at jupiter. The windows for launch are long but very spread out, so mission timing would be important too.

And, funfacts time.. Clipper is going to europa but will be spending much of its time in orbit around jupiter, passing closely to europa every orbit. This was done to limit the amount of radiation the sat will get during its mission, and that orbit is uuuge, in order to avoid as much of the radiation as possible.

The area of Jupiter and its moons is probably one of the most hostile space environments in our system, catching asteroids, radiation, huge planet full of gasses that would corrode you and your ship if you dipped in, and a huge gravity well that makes it difficult to leave again once youre there. Not many other planets in our system are as dangerous as jupiter and friends.

replies(1): >>42061896 #
KWxIUElW8Xt0tD9 ◴[] No.42061896[source]
I was under the impression that we now know how to do low-fuel paths through the solar system using gravity. It's more a question of how long do you want to take to get where you're going.
replies(2): >>42062745 #>>42063057 #
foobarbecue ◴[] No.42062745{3}[source]
If you want to go faster, you need more fuel, and eventually you max out the biggest rocket available. Clipper is the most massive planetary probe ever-- they had to use falcon heavy in fully expendable mode to get it up there.
replies(1): >>42064684 #
dr_orpheus ◴[] No.42064684{4}[source]
Yep, for reference Europa Clipper is 6,065 kg [0]. It is an absolutely massive interplanetary probe. It is getting close in size to some of the largest GEO communication satellites. And to get it out to Jupiter they definitely need some of the gravity assist trajectories.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, New Horizons was only 478 kg [1] and still holds the record for the fastest thing ever launched from Earth. It also did a gravity assist flyby around Jupiter and it still took 9 years to get to Pluto.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

replies(2): >>42069946 #>>42071498 #
1. magicalhippo ◴[] No.42069946{5}[source]
Cassini[1] was quite massive too at launch, at 5712 kg. Though to be fair, 320 kg was due to the Huygens[2] probe it carried with it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens_(spacecraft)