Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

There’s a problem with the Juno spacecraft’s camera

Georgina Torbet
By

If you’ve enjoyed looking at beautiful images of Jupiter in recent years, then the odds are good that you’ve seen images taken by the JunoCam instrument on board the Juno spacecraft, currently in orbit around Jupiter. Unfortunately, this beloved science instrument has recently developed some problems, causing the loss of images collected during a recent flyby of the planet.

This illustration depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft soaring over Jupiter’s south pole.
This illustration depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft soaring over Jupiter’s south pole. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The problems began last year when the spacecraft made its 47th flyby of Jupiter on December 14. Having completed the flyby, the spacecraft’s onboard computer went to send the data it had collected back to Earth, but the downlink was interrupted. There was a problem with the spacecraft accessing the data it had just collected, probably caused by the strong radiation it experienced due to Jupiter’s magnetosphere.

In the next few days, the computer was rebooted and the spacecraft was put into safe mode to make sure no further damage occurred. Then the team was able to retrieve and downlink the data from the previous flyby, and Juno returned to its normal operations on December 29.

Related

However, there was some corruption of the data collected on the 47th flyby — a few images had artifacts like high levels of noise. But the team thought that this was only a temporary problem, caused by high temperatures when the JunoCam camera was powered on after the break. So they went ahead with planning for the 48th flyby, scheduled for January 22.

Unfortunately, there were more problems with the camera on the recent 48th flyby.  “The JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft did not acquire all planned images during the orbiter’s most recent flyby of Jupiter on Jan. 22,” NASA wrote in an update. The issue was similar to what happened on the previous flyby due to a temperature rise in the camera.

“However, on this new occasion the issue persisted for a longer period of time (23 hours compared to 36 minutes during the December close pass), leaving the first 214 JunoCam images planned for the flyby unusable,” NASA continued. “As with the previous occurrence, once the anomaly that caused the temperature rise cleared, the camera returned to normal operation and the remaining 44 images were of good quality and usable.”

Now, the question is what is causing the rise in temperatures and whether it can be fixed. For now, the camera will remain powered on while teams work to investigate the problem.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
See the Ingenuity helicopter’s stunning image of a Martian sunset
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its high-resolution color camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter's fuselage and pointed approximately 22 degrees below the horizon. This image was acquired on Feb. 22, 2023 (Sol 714 of the Perseverance rover mission).

The tiny helicopter Ingenuity is continuing to explore Mars, gearing up for its 47th flight. That's a pretty stunning achievement, considering it was originally designed to perform just five flights and has had to deal with changing seasonal conditions including colder temperatures and dropping atmospheric pressure.

Despite the inhospitable environment, the helicopter continues to operate and recently made its longest flight in almost a year. And now, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has shared an image taken by Ingenuity during its 45th flight which shows an otherworldly sunset, as the sun slinks over the Martian horizon.

Read more
How to watch the Crew-5 mission splash down tonight
The SpaceX Crew-5 members are seated inside the Dragon Endurance crew ship atop the Falcon 9 rocket before launching to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A in Florida. From left are, Mission Specialist Anna Kikina from Roscosmos; Pilot Josh Cassada and Commander Nicole Mann, both NASA astronauts; and Mission Specialist Koichi Wakata from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Today a crew of four astronauts left the International Space Station (ISS) and are traveling back to Earth, due to splashdown into the ocean later tonight. The Crew-5 astronauts spent nearly six months living in space and are now due back on solid ground.

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

Read more
NASA to reveal Artemis II crew for historic lunar trip
The moon and Earth as seen from the Orion spacecraft in November 2022.

NASA will soon reveal the four lucky astronauts that will be sent on a flyby of the moon in the Artemis II mission.

The four crewmembers -- three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency -- will be named on Monday, April 3, NASA chief Bill Nelson announced in a tweet on Thursday.

Read more