Perijove 7 update and discussion thread! (Great Red Spot hype!) : junomission

It's that time again, only this time its special! During the latter part of this historic encounter with Jupiter, the Juno spacecraft will fly directly over the Great Red Spot! Mission planners have predicted that it will be at an altitude of just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles) when it passes over the center of the storm. JunoCam will most definitely be on for this pass, along with another essential, the Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which will be making its second performance of the mission, after making its debut during Perijove 4 back in February. This will mean that the spacecraft will be oriented perfectly parallel to the planet, to allow the MWR to take proper data, facing the planet head-on. This is in contrast to how the spacecraft is normally oriented during these passes, with the spacecraft's fixed high-gain antenna being pointed directly at the Earth in order to conduct the Gravity Science experiment, resulting in the spacecraft being slightly at an angle to the planet. Since the high-gain antenna is facing away from the planet, only the lower-gain antennas on the spacecraft can be used for communications during the flyby; unsuitable for the Gravity Science experiment.

The latest round of voting for JunoCam is complete, and the results are what you'd expect. Lots and lots of interest in the areas in and out of the Great Red Spot. Fifteen targets were chosen by the JunoCam team for Perijove 7. Six of which related to the Great Red Spot. There was an intriguing amount of interest among the public for targets in the Northern Equatorial and Temperate Belts as well, with five located in the region. A cheeky point-of-interest voted on by the public was "Mortyland". Lots of Rick and Morty fans either following the Juno mission, or trolling it, probably.

Alrighty, the moment you're waiting for: the numbers. On the day of the flyby, 11 July, Jupiter will be 812.6 million kilometers from Earth. This means the time taken from a signal to travel from Earth to the Juno spacecraft will be 45 minutes. For Perijove 7, the operative "Earth time" will be "Spacecraft time" plus 45 minutes. This is important to note when you're following along with the mission status on DSN Now.

The spacecraft's pass over the north pole will occur at ~01:05 UTC spacecraft time on 11 July (~01:50 UTC Earth time). That is roughly 31-and-a-half hours from when this post was made. Closest approach to Jupiter during this historic flyby will occur an hour later, at exactly 01:55 UTC spacecraft time (02:40 UTC Earth time). The altitude of closest approach this time? 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles). This is the closest predicted altitude ever for the mission so far, though the spacecraft has definitely been closer. The data read an altitude of 3,421 kilometers (2,126 miles) during Perijove 5, which was 1,000 km closer than that had originally anticipated. Nonetheless, the margin of error isn't too great that an accidental deorbit is possible, so you need not worry.

The speed of the spacecraft is predicted to exceed 209,000 kilometers per hour (130,000 miles per hour), according to Eyes on the Solar System. According to NASA, the traverse from closest approach to the heart of the Great Red Spot will only take 11 minutes and 33 seconds, travelling over 39,771 kilometers (24,713 miles) to get there; the equivalent of just under the circumference of the Earth. Juno will be travelling the distance of one circumnavigation around the Earth in just under 12 minutes. Amazing stuff. The critical phase of Perijove 7 will end when Juno passes over the south pole of Jupiter at ~03:10 UTC spacecraft time (~03:55 UTC Earth time), with the entire phase lasting 2 hours as per usual.

I will be returning to live updates in the comments below, something I've missed out on for Perijove 6. I apologise for those inconvenienced last time around, whom were expecting a live update thread. As per usual, updates will be timed with a bold font. For official updates on the mission, be sure to follow @NASAJuno on Twitter! Feel free to discuss, ask questions or express hype in the comments below, too! You can also follow along with the spacecraft using NASA's Eyes simulation software, free to download here!