[ad_1]
NASA is ready to give missions to March and Jupiter a little more time to continue their investigations, although there is no guarantee that they will finish their extended assignments.
the Juno the orbital mission to Jupiter will be extended by four years and the Insight two Mars landing mission based on each mission’s “outstanding science” output, according to NASA independent review panel quoted in a press release.
But there will be challenges associated with mission expansions.
In photos: Juno’s breathtaking view of Jupiter
InSight’s Power Margins “Expected to Hit Extremely Low Levels During Proposed ME [extended mission], ” the review committee noted, adding that the spacecraft will likely need to implement energy saving measures for the mission to continue beyond the end of July 2021. Even with these measures taken into account, if dust accumulates beyond d At a certain threshold, the lander’s solar panels may not consume enough energy to continue the mission until the end of its extension, in December 2022.
Likewise, there is no guarantee that Juno will continue its work until its new end date in 2025, due to the intense radiation environment in which the spacecraft operates. That said, the review panel noted that Juno has healthy instruments and power margins, allowing it to continue to work well beyond its primary mission. Additional observations will help in planning the next Europa Clipper mission to watch a frozen moon from Jupiter, the panel noted.
New planetary science missions first arrive at their destination with a primary mission, as they are given a core science mandate, schedule and budget. Every three years thereafter, NASA’s Planetary Science Division must request a review to justify an extended mission. Proposals are sent to panels of independent experts with backgrounds in science, operations and mission management, wrote Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, in response to this year’s process in a letter dated Friday (January 8).
Conference presentations, journal publications, and other metrics of scientific output are taken into account to assess the value of continuing a mission’s work, as well as practical aspects such as available budget and the health of the mission. spatialship.
NASA has noted the value of allowing planetary missions to continue their work, as the costs of mission development, instrument building, and launching spacecraft are all already paid for.
“Extended missions leverage significant NASA investments, allowing scientific operations to continue at a much lower cost than developing a new mission,” NASA said in the press release. “In some cases, expansions allow missions to continue to acquire valuable long-lasting data sets, while in other cases, they allow missions to visit new targets, with entirely new science goals.”
Juno will run until September 2025 as long as the health of the spacecraft allows; As the spacecraft regularly operates in areas of intense radiation around Jupiter, there is some uncertainty in predicting the life of instruments and components in the harsh environment.
“The Juno spacecraft and its mission team have made discoveries about Jupiter’s inner structure, magnetic field and magnetosphere, and found its atmospheric dynamics to be far more complex than scientists previously thought, ”NASA said in the same press release.
“The [extended] The mission will not only continue key observations of Jupiter, but will also extend its investigations to the wider Jovian system, including the rings of Jupiter and the large moons, with targeted observations and planned close-up overflights of the moons Ganymede, Europe and Io ” , the agency added.
InSight faced many challenges in deploying a thermal probe instrument dubbed the underground “mole”; the the probe continues to rise to the surface despite several attempts. But the spacecraft has also been granted an extension until December 2022. Teams will continue to try to get the thermal probe underground, but with low priority, NASA said.
NASA noted that the mission was able to deploy a weather station and a seismometer that studies the interior of Mars; the latter instrument has applications for understanding how rocky planets like Earth evolved.
“Research and identification earthquake, the mission team collected data clearly demonstrating the robust tectonic activity of the Red Planet and improved our knowledge of the atmospheric dynamics, magnetic field and interior structure of the planet, ”said NASA. InSight’s extended mission will focus on producing a high-quality, seismic dataset. “
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
[ad_2]
Source link