Juno Gave NASA Controllers Quite the Scare During Recent Jupiter Flyby

For nearly a decade, a large probe has braved the harsh Jovian environment to bring us mesmerizing, close-up views of Jupiter and its moons. But sometimes, the gas giant gets the best of it. The Juno mission recently went into an unexpected safe mode during a scheduled flyby of Jupiter, temporarily powering down its science instruments. Juno was making its 71st close approach to Jupiter when it entered its precautionary status twice on April 4 as it was flying by the gas giant, NASA recently revealed. It’s not clear exactly what may have caused Juno to go into safe mode, but the space agency believes it may have happened as the spacecraft flew through Jupiter’s radiation belts. Mission operations reestablished data transmission with Juno and the data indicated that the spacecraft first went into safe mode at 5:17 a.m. ET, which was about an hour ahead of its scheduled flyby. Juno entered safe mode again around 45 minutes after perijove, or its close approach to Jupiter. During safe m ... Read full article.