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The spacecraft traveled a total distance of roughly 2.8 × 10 ^ 9 km (19 AU; 1.7 × 10 ^ 9 mi) to reach Jupiter. [20] The spacecraft was designed to orbit Jupiter 37 times over the course of its mission. This was originally planned to take 20 months. [4] [5]
The first spacecraft to explore Jupiter was Pioneer 10, which flew past the planet in December 1973, followed by Pioneer 11 twelve months later. Pioneer 10 obtained the first close-up images of Jupiter and its Galilean moons; the spacecraft studied the planet's atmosphere, detected its magnetic field, observed its radiation belts and determined ...
This was 8 km (5 mi) higher than predicted, and the time of the closest approach was within a second of the prediction. It was the first time that a deep space probe had returned to Earth from interplanetary space. [62] A second flyby of Earth was at 304 km (189 mi) at 15:09:25 UTC on December 8, 1992. [82]
Spacecraft safed at 4 hours before encounter due to software problem. With very little time, the Galileo team had to formulate command sequences and get them to Jupiter. The spacecraft recovered only three minutes before the closest encounter with Io. Collected dramatic pictures of Io volcanic activity. Observed mile-high lava fountain.
An important decision made at this time was to use a Mariner program spacecraft like that used for Voyager for the Jupiter orbiter, rather than a Pioneer. Pioneer was stabilized by spinning the spacecraft at 60 rpm , which gave a 360-degree view of the surroundings, and did not require an attitude control system.
An image of Jupiter captured by the Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 7, 2000, as the space probe made its way through the solar system toward Saturn. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Rosetta was the first spacecraft to fly close to Jupiter's orbit using solar cells as its main power source. [ 50 ] Rosetta was the first spacecraft to orbit a comet nucleus , [ 51 ] and was the first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it headed towards the inner Solar System .
At 16:06 GMT, NASA launched the Europa Clipper ship from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to search for signs of life on one of Jupiter’s frozen moons. The spacecraft has embarked on a 1.8 billion-mile ...