NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter for several years, recently faced a significant challenge when its JunoCam began experiencing severe imaging issues. The solar-powered camera soon began to exhibit symptoms of radiation damage, putting its continued usefulness in jeopardy. Luckily, the passionate crew responsible for JunoCam put their heads together and devised an effective recovery plan that has brought the camera back to life.
JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera primarily designed to operate during the first eight orbits of Jupiter. It has truly gone above and beyond. This tool remains key for imaging the gas giant and its hundreds of fascinating features. Under the leadership of Michael Ravine, the instrument lead from Malin Space Science Systems, a grassroots movement rapidly formed to ensure that JunoCam would survive and thrive.
The Challenges Faced by JunoCam
Even though JunoCam had just finished its 47th orbit around Jupiter, it was starting to develop very subtle traces of radiation degradation. This was a key worry since this kind of harm could threaten the integrity of the images they were working so hard to capture. By the time JunoCam was able to finish its 55th orbit, it had turned tragic. Streaks and other noise distorted the images, evidencing a drastic drop in performance.
These issues compounded even more by the 56th orbit when almost all images generated by JunoCam came out corrupted. A burned-out voltage regulator was the suspected culprit behind these problems. This regulator is important for keeping the camera’s power supply alive. Without this very stable power supply, JunoCam’s overall functionality would probably have been significantly compromised.
Innovative Recovery Techniques
Once again, the JunoCam team was forced to move quickly as the situation continued to worsen. They were able to create a unique recovery strategy, the annealing process. This new methodology meant using JunoCam’s single heater to increase its temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. That first winter aboard, their team blasted the heater to keep warm. Their goal was to minimize the damaging effects of radiation exposure on the camera.
The annealing process proved effective. After this thermal bake-out, JunoCam was back to generating high quality images for many orbits to come. Though it had limited operations remaining, the recovery proved JunoCam’s amazing resourcefulness. It celebrated the creativity and resourcefulness of NASA engineers, who work miracles in troubleshooting spacecraft from countless miles away.
The team extended this concept using different variations of the annealing technique to other non-science instruments and engineering subsystems on the Juno spacecraft. This larger use case emphasizes NASA’s priority to get the most operational life and functionality out of its spacecraft as possible.
Sharing Success at Industry Conferences
On July 16, developers highlighted the outstanding JunoCam comeback success at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nuclear & Space Radiation Effects Conference. Beyond just delivering this stunning process, they shared the techniques they used to empower such an incredible process. The workshop highlighted the critical collaborative work carried out by artistic communicators to salvage one unique imaging tool. They did it from a mind-boggling distance!
NASA’s greatest strength has always been its ability to adapt and innovate in the face of overwhelming challenges. This strategy strengthens its core missions today while laying the ground for the space exploration of tomorrow. The lessons learned from JunoCam’s recovery will improve and optimize how we operate future similar instruments on future missions.