JUNO EXTENDED MISSION

The Juno mission was scheduled to end this July, but NASA have extended it for another 4 years, and the Juno team have kindly provided the provisional schedule of orbits up to the end of 2022.  The table below is adapted from this. 

The changes started with PJ33 on 2021 April 15.  In order to maintain the orbit, the perijove was delayed by exactly one jovian rotation, so equator crossing took place at 23:43 rather than 13:48, over the same longitudes.  (SCET = UT at spacecraft.)

PJ34 was on 2021 June 8, preceded by a close flyby of Ganymede on June 7.  This reduced the orbital period from 53 days to 43 days.  The period will remain at 43-44 days until PJ45 on 2022 Sep.29, when a close flyby of Europa will reduce it to 38 days.   At several other perijoves, there will be more distant flybys of Ganymede, Europa and Io. At the start of 2023, PJ57 and PJ58 will feature close flybys of Io that will successively reduce the period to 33 days.  The mission will end in 2025 Sep. 

The schedule below is expected to be fixed; it has been revised (2021 Sep.) from a provisional one posted earlier.  

The NASA announcement of the mission extension was here:  https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-juno-mission-expands-into-the-future

          

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