The NASA spacecraft encountered an issue while flying through an area that could be affected by the intense radiation of the largest planet in the Solar System. However, it has gradually recovered.
According to Space, the NASA spacecraft in question is Juno, the agency’s warrior exploring Jupiter and one of its most successful orbiters.
NASA has reported that Juno is continuing to restore its memory after a data interruption incident last December, which left controllers on Earth puzzled as they could not access the spacecraft’s memory.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft is a warrior exploring Jupiter – (Photo: NASA).
The incident occurred during the spacecraft’s 47th flyby of Jupiter. Operators from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) suspect that the intense radiation from Jupiter’s formidable magnetosphere attacked Juno, causing a system failure.
It is also possible that the “attacker” was Io, Jupiter’s massive volcanic moon.
JPL successfully restarted the system on December 17, 2022, and placed it in “safe mode” with minimal operations as a precautionary measure.
Since December 22, 2022, they have been working to restore data for Juno, and in a statement on December 31, 2022, they announced their success.
“Scientific data from the spacecraft’s most recent solar-powered flyby of Jupiter and its moon Io remains intact” – NASA stated.
The remaining data from this 47th flyby is expected to reach Earth in the coming days, helping scientists better assess the incident and Juno’s status.
This NASA spacecraft left Earth in August 2011, traveling 2.7 million miles to reach Jupiter’s orbit after five years.
Its mission is to answer questions about the composition and origin of Jupiter, as well as to explore the fascinating natural satellites of this planet, particularly the four massive moons: Ganymede, Europa, Io, and Callisto; among which Ganymede is larger than Mercury, and Europa is considered by NASA to be a highly promising candidate for extraterrestrial life.
