(ORDO NEWS) — The JunoCam camera installed on the Juno spacecraft did not receive all the planned images during the last flyby of Jupiter on January 22.
Data received from the spacecraft indicates that JunoCam has encountered a problem similar to the one that occurred during the previous rendezvous with the gas giant.
Then the team observed an anomalous increase in temperature after turning on the camera.
However, in this case, the problem persisted for a longer period of time (23 hours compared to 36 minutes in December).
As a result, the first 214 JunoCam images were found to be unusable. As in the previous case, as soon as the anomaly that caused the temperature increase was eliminated, the camera returned to normal operation.
The remaining 44 images were of good quality.
The mission team is evaluating JunoCam engineering data from two recent flights and is investigating the root cause of the anomaly.
JunoCam will remain on for a while. The camera will continue to operate in its normal mode.
JunoCam is designed to capture Jupiter’s cloud tops. It was included in the spacecraft specifically to attract the public, but it turned out to be necessary for scientific research as well.
The chamber was originally designed to operate in Jupiter’s high-energy particle environment for at least seven orbits, but has operated for much longer.
The spacecraft will make its 49th flyby of Jupiter on March 1.
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