future human travel to jupiter

How Long Would It Take For Humans To Travel To Jupiter?

The five visible planets have been central to human mythology for thousands of years and, along with the sun and moon, may be the reason we have seven days in a week (via Time and Date ). And among the seven non-fixed bodies of the heavens, Jupiter has long been considered the king of them all. Today, Jupiter retains its status of King of the Planets due to its massive size: excluding the sun, it's twice as big as the rest of the solar system put together (from NASA ).

Because of the prominence we've placed on it, humans have been observing and studying Jupiter for over 2,000 years (per Nature ). Early in the 17th century, Galileo Galilei's discovery of moons orbiting the planet upended the worldview that all objects in the solar system orbit the earth, and helped cement Nicolaus Copernicus' ideas about heliocentrism (via The Planetary Society ).

Today, not satisfied to merely peer through our telescopes, we send probes to Jupiter to make close observations in our stead. But how long will it be before we can go there ourselves? And how long will it take us to get there when we do?

The long and winding road

If we want to know how long it's going to take to travel to Jupiter, we need to know how far away it is. Because both the Earth and Jupiter are constantly moving, the answer is always changing. The closest the two planets can possibly be is 365 million miles, with a maximum of 601 million miles (via Space.com ). Just for perspective, 601 million miles is over 24,000 times the girth of the Earth. So, if you wanted to drive the shortest possible route going 70 mph the whole way, it would take you just under 600 years to do it, or 979 years if you take the scenic route.

But let's be real. We're not driving to Jupiter, and not just because there are no gas stations along the way. If we're going to travel to another heavenly body we're going to need a spaceship of some kind. How fast do those go? The fastest humans have ever traveled is 24,800 mph on the Apollo 10 mission. If we could travel at that speed for the whole trip it would take between 613 days and 1,009 days, depending on the position of the planets.

Past precedent

But what about spacecraft that have actually been to Jupiter? In the 1970s, four separate probes were sent: Pioneers 10 and 11 , and Voyagers 1 and 2 . All four probes took a direct route to our largest planetary companion and so spent anywhere from 546 to 688 days in transit. The record is held by the New Horizons probe, which traveled between 36,000 and 47,000 mph on its trip to Jupiter (via University of Maine at Presque Isle ), reaching the planet in 405 days before continuing on toward Pluto.

Although all of these probes managed to reach Jupiter, none of them stuck around. The Voyager probes have left the solar system (via Space.com ) and New Horizons is moseying about in the Kuiper Belt (via Space Center Houston ). Only two spacecraft have ever traveled to Jupiter and stayed there: Galileo and Juno . Both probes took a more circuitous route to get to Jupiter, using the gravitational pull of the inner planets to gain the speed required to launch past the asteroid belt and into Jupiter's orbit. Taking the long way means you use less fuel on the trip, fuel which is needed to slow down enough to achieve a stable orbit (via ScienceABC ). So how long did these trips take? Galileo clocked in at just over six years, and Juno managed to do it in a bit under five.

Human exploration

The extent of our manned forays into outer space have reached no farther than the moon. Our last trip there was in 1972 but we hope to be back there by 2025 (at the soonest) on the Artemis 3 mission, which should take about three days (per Royal Museums Greenwich ) to travel to the moon. NASA's explicit plan is to use these missions as a foundation on which to build missions to Mars in the 2030s.

According to NASA, the simplest, fuel-efficient route to Mars would take nine months for a one-way trip, and 21 months to go round trip. If we extrapolate the methodology used to calculate this route, a similar trip to Jupiter would take over six years just for the one-way trip. NASA also estimates that a four-person crew would need 8,000 pounds of food per year, meaning that a trip to Jupiter with four people would need to bring 48,000 pounds of food just to get there, and even more to make the return trip. Plus, the food would need to be launched into space from earth, as well as all of the life-support and scientific equipment. All of that weight will take longer to get up to speed and longer to slow down, increasing the potential timeline of the mission.

Here there be dragons

Supposing that weight is no object and we could potentially bring 100,000 pounds of food on an interplanetary odyssey to Jupiter and back, there's still the problem of getting there safely. Astronauts who leave the confines of the earth's gravity have a host of challenges to overcome. One of the most dangerous is radiation. Aside from the constant bombardment of radiation from the sun, unprotected by our magnetosphere, space travelers will have to protect themselves from a constant barrage of galactic cosmic rays which can lead to genetic damage and cancer (via Nature ). It's even worse around Jupiter.

Spending lots of time in outer space also presents psychological challenges. Long-term space travel can lead to anxiety, worsening interactions with other crew members. Isolation from family and friends, along with a monotonous work schedule, only makes these symptoms worse. And these are problems faced by contemporary space travelers (via Clinical Neuropsychiatry, posted at the National Library of Medicine ). We'll have to overcome these problems and new ones before we consider sending anyone to Mars, let alone Jupiter.

There are also physical risks. Space isn't empty, and when you're traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, even an impact with a grain of sand can be disastrous. And to get to Jupiter you'll have to cross the asteroid belt (via NASA ).

Where would we even go?

One of the things that has always fascinated us about Jupiter is that it's a microcosm of the solar system. Just as myriad planets orbit the sun, so too does Jupiter have an entourage of heavenly bodies accompanying it on its voyage. Even though Jupiter is a gas giant with no solid surface on which to land a spacecraft, it does have 79 rocky moons which we could explore.

Four of those moons are substantially larger than the others, with gravity similar to our moon. The first three — Io, Europa, and Ganymede — are too close to Jupiter and receive too much radiation to allow humans on their surface without lots of protection. But the fourth moon, Callisto, receives significantly less radiation than the other three. It's also suspected that it has a subsurface ocean of liquid water which would make life much easier for any human visitors. (via Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences ).

In the early 2000s a study was done to assess the feasibility of a crewed mission to Callisto. It concluded that it wouldn't happen until at least the 2040s and it would require new kinds of propulsion that haven't been tested in space before. But, assuming everything falls into place, an eventual, round-trip mission could take anywhere between 652 and 1,661 days.

2024 Marks an Important Year in NASA’s Search for Extraterrestrial Life

N ot a lot of spacecraft have gone aloft with poetry etched on their sides. Actually, no spacecraft has ever gone aloft with poetry etched on its side—but no spacecraft has ever been quite like NASA’s Europa Clipper .

The ship, which is in its final stages of assembly , will launch in October, making a long, six-year journey out to Jupiter. Once there, it will execute a series of close-up flybys of the planet’s mysterious moon Europa —a world that has an icy shell and a globe-girdling ocean, and is the one place in the solar system outside of Earth that astronomers and exobiologists consider the likeliest to harbor life .

That kind of promise is the stuff of cosmic lyricism, and last year, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón penned some verse in honor of both the moon and the mission, writing in part:

[E]ach rivulet, each pulse, each vein. O second moon, we, too, are made of water, Of vast and beckoning seas. We, too, are made of wonders, of great. And ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, Of a need to call out through the dark.

Come 2030, when the spacecraft arrives in the Jovian system , call out through the dark it will—perhaps answering the long-compelling question of whether we are all alone in a cold and vast universe or if somewhere out there we have company. “We’re trying to understand the potential habitability of Europa,” says NASA project scientist Robert Pappalardo . “Is it a place that has the ingredients for life, the conditions for life? What is its chemistry like? Its metabolism?”

Adds NASA program scientist Curt Niebur: “The more we learn about Europa the more it looks like those ingredients are likely going to be present.”

It was in 1610 that the legendary astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered the four large moons of Jupiter, which would come to be named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Today, they are known to be part of a litter of at least 95 moons orbiting the giant planet. It was 405 years later, in 2015, that the decidedly less well-known John Culberson , a former Texas congressman, whose district included parts of Houston—home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center —steered legislation through Congress providing funding for both a Europa orbiter and a lander later. He also made  the projects a mandatory part of NASA’s exploration agenda. Europa missions, he told TIME shortly after the measure passed, are the only ones “it is illegal not to fly.”

Those flights could turn up a lot. As Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto orbit Jupiter, they are held tight in the planet’s gravitational vise, but each satellite’s much weaker gravity has an influence on its sister moons too—plucking them as they pass one another and causing them to flex slightly, much like our own moon pulls and releases tides on Earth. For the Jovian moons, all that stretching and squeezing produces a lot of internal heat. On Io, the innermost of the four large moons, this leads to volcanoes, with up to 400 active eruptions taking place at any time. On Europa, this means that the moon’s icy shell does not remotely extend down to its solid crust. Instead, NASA estimates that the ice rind is no thicker than 15 to 25 km (10 to 15 mi.) while the ocean beneath it reaches a depth of an additional 60 to 150 km (40 to 100 mi.). At just 3,100 km (1,940 mi) in diameter, Europa is roughly a quarter the size of Earth, but its great single ocean is thought to contain twice as much water as all of our planet’s oceans combined.

What’s more, that water is not standing still. Forever sloshing around the moon, it causes fractures in the ice sheet as well as massive glacier-like spires that break free and then freeze jaggedly in place, and geysers that erupt high above the Europan surface. Water falling back to the moon as well as more that seeps up through the cracks in the ice produce rusty red stains on portions of the surface. That is a tantalizing chemical signature that Europa’s ocean might be much like Earth’s oceans.

“The water likely contains sodium chloride, or ordinary table salt,” says Pappalardo. “Radiation from charged particles trapped in Europa’s magnetosphere would turn it a reddish brown.”

Salt isn’t all that’s stirred into the Europan water. The ocean is in continuous contact with the silt at its bottom and likely picks up multiple organic chemicals , including nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as dissolved oxygen and hydrogen molecules. All of that makes for a rich, warm, amniotic environment in which life would have had plenty of opportunity to emerge. Making the case for biology stronger still is the possible presence of hydrothermal vents on Europa’s ocean floor. On Earth, these geologically heated geysers support all manner of life miles below the surface; Europa, with its flexing crust, could easily be home to similar processes.

“It's not just unicellular life [around Earth’s hydrothermal vents],” says Niebur.  “It's multicellular, complex life forms that are down there living in complete darkness, driven by internal heat. Well, Europa has an internal heat source as well.”

Of course, scientists are not remotely ready to say that just because biology could be present on Europa that it is present. Europan life would need not just the right chemical ingredients, not just the presence of water, not just a sufficient source of energy, such as the moon’s tidal heating. It would also need a lot of time.

“You need stability,” says Niebur. “It doesn't help if you put those ingredients together for 20 minutes; life isn't going to begin and evolve in that kind of timespan. You need an environment that’s going to be stable for millions of years.”

There’s one other indispensable thing too—something no evolutionary biologist or exobiologist has ever defined. “We have to know what's necessary to go from chemicals to chemical energy to life,” says Pappalardo. “We don’t understand what that extra spark is.”

Patience will be required before those and other answers are forthcoming. The Europa Clipper is scheduled to launch this fall atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket in the company’s fleet, producing 2.3 million kg (5 million lbs) of thrust at take-off. Ordinarily, the Falcon Heavy conserves some of its fuel on the way up, allowing its engines to continue burning so its three stages can descend gently to Earth where they can be recovered, refurbished, and reused. That will not be the case for this launch. NASA intends to squeeze every ounce of energy—and every drop of fuel—from the Falcon, giving Europa Clipper the greatest thrust possible and leaving the three spent stages to crash back into the ocean.

“We’re going to burn the boosters and not recover them in order to get the maximum throw from the rocket,” says Pappalardo.

That will indeed give the spacecraft a lot of kick, sending it off at a blazing 40,200 km/h (25,000 mph) relative to the in-motion Earth, and up to 129,000 km/h (80,000 mph) relative to the stationary sun. Even that, however, means that Europa Clipper  will not arrive in the Jovian system until April 2030 . It will spend close to one more year orbiting Jupiter and using the gravity of the three other large moons to shape its trajectory, pointing it toward Europa. In 2031 it will at last begin its science campaign, making nearly 50 passes by Europa—some as close as 25 km (16 mi.)—across the span of three years, with the possibility of a mission extension if the hardware and the money allow.

“It depends on how the spacecraft is doing and NASA’s funding situation,” says Pappalardo. “We’d have to determine the goals for an extended mission, but I imagine we will find some areas that are especially interesting that we want to go after more intensively.”

The betting is that the ship will indeed be able to stay in service beyond its minimum of three years. NASA historically lowballs its mission timelines in order to keep expectations in check and make it easy for its spacecraft to exceed them. Before the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars in 2004, the space agency announced that they would function for a minimum of 90 days, with any time beyond that considered a bonus. Ultimately, Spirit remained at work for six years and Opportunity for 15. Europa Clipper is built for similar longevity.

The main body of the spacecraft is 5 m (16 ft.) tall, but when its power-generating solar panels are extended, it stretches 30 m (100 ft.)—about the length of a basketball court—to maximize the energy it collects from the distant sun. It’s equipped with 24 engines, which will allow it to slalom through the obstacle course of Jupiter’s many moons, taking precise aim at Europa. The spacecraft is also equipped with nine different science instruments , including wide- and narrow-field cameras, a temperature-measuring system, a mass spectrometer to study the chemistry of both the surface of Europa and its exceedingly tenuous atmosphere, a gravity sensor that will determine how much the moon is flexed and squeezed as it moves through its orbits, a magnetometer to measure the thickness of the ice shell and another one that can help determine the depth and salinity of Europa’s ocean.

No matter what Europa Clipper does or doesn't discover, Culberson’s 2015 law means that unless Congress repeals the Europa provision, a landing mission will come next—but that doesn’t mean it will come soon. The space agency conducts what it calls decadal surveys to select missions for the upcoming ten years and the next review is not due until 2030—or right about the time Europa Clipper is arriving at Jupiter. Planning, designing, and building a lander could easily take another decade still. 

“Unfortunately,” Pappalardo says, “[the mission] might be in the 2040s.”

Europa, of course, is patient. Birthed 4.5 billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, it has billions more years left to it—years in which any life it may harbor today can continue to grow, flourish, and beckon humans outward. “We are creatures of constant awe,” wrote Limón in another line of her poem. If there is life on Europa, that very human quality should inspire more Jovian journeys.

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Write to Jeffrey Kluger at [email protected]

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Europe’s Juice Mission Launches to Jupiter and Its Moons

The spacecraft has embarked on an eight-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, focusing on moons that could offer clues in the search for extraterrestrial life.

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

Jupiter, king of the solar system, will be getting a new robotic visitor.

The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, launched on Friday morning from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America. The original launch, scheduled for Thursday, was delayed after lightning was detected in the vicinity of the launch site.

On Friday the weather improved and the spacecraft, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, lifted off flawlessly. A half-hour later, Juice separated from the rocket’s second stage and embarked on its long journey.

Jupiter, the largest planet orbiting the sun, is fascinating unto itself, but its massive moons are the ultimate prize. Some of them are hunks of icy rock that may hide life-harboring oceans beneath their surfaces. Juice, from the European Space Agency or ESA, aims to closely study three of Jupiter’s satellites: Callisto, Europa and Ganymede.

“This is one of the most exciting missions we have ever flown in the solar system, by far the most complex” said Josef Aschbacher, the head of ESA.

Weighing in at six tons, the European spacecraft carries 10 advanced scientific instruments to study the moons and capture images. Jupiter is not the mission’s primary target. Instead, it aims to probe Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, and two other moons, Europa and Callisto.

But reaching Jupiter will take Juice more than eight years, with a series of swings or gravitational assists past Venus, Mars and Earth to give the spacecraft the push it will need to enter Jupiter’s orbit in July 2031.

When Juice at last reaches Jupiter, it will repeatedly fly past the three moons on a looping orbit, staying outside the giant planet’s dangerous radiation belts as it gathers data. In total, 35 flybys are planned as the spacecraft searches for magnetic signals and other evidence to confirm the presence and size of oceans sloshing under the moons’ surfaces. It will also track how the exteriors of the moons move in response to Jupiter’s gravitational pull, possibly influenced by the subsurface oceans.

The moon that may be most promising in the search for life is Europa. Astronomers think its ocean is directly in contact with a rocky floor, which could provide food and energy for life as hydrothermal vents burst upward. Juice will perform two flybys of Europa.

The spacecraft will also perform 21 flybys of Callisto, which may also possess a salty ocean but is thought to be less capable of supporting life.

But the Juice mission’s primary objective is the study of Ganymede, a moon so large it is bigger than the planet Mercury. The spacecraft’s path around the Jovian system should allow the spacecraft to be captured into orbit around Ganymede in December 2034 — the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer solar system. Beginning at about 3,100 miles above the surface, the spacecraft’s altitude will gradually be lowered to just over 300 miles in 2035 — and perhaps lower, fuel permitting.

“If we have enough propellant, which means we had a good trip to Jupiter without too many problems, we will reduce the orbit to” an altitude of about 150 miles, said Giuseppe Sarri, the project manager for Juice at ESA.

Orbiting Ganymede will allow scientists to intricately understand the moon’s characteristics. It is the only moon in the solar system known to have its own magnetic field, possibly from a liquid iron core like our own planet’s. “If you’re standing on the surface of Ganymede and you had a compass needle, it will point to the north pole like on Earth,” said Michele Dougherty from Imperial College London, who leads the magnetometer instrument on Juice. “We want to understand why.”

Juice should be able to discern the interior structure of Ganymede, including the size and extent of its ocean. It should even be able to measure the salt content of the ocean resulting from minerals that circulate within, which could provide life with sustenance. “We’re trying to understand where the salts came from,” Dr. Dougherty noted.

Ganymede’s ocean differs significantly from Europa’s, but it may still be habitable.

“For habitability you need liquid water, a heat source and organic materials,” Dr. Dougherty said. “If we confirm or deny those three things, we’ve done what we said we were going to do.”

The mission will end in late 2035 with a crash landing onto Ganymede’s surface, unless a discovery is made during the mission that suggests this might contaminate the moon’s ocean.

What other missions will study Jupiter?

Juice is not the only mission investigating Jupiter and its moons.

Juno, a NASA mission, has orbited Jupiter since 2016. Its focus has been the planet itself rather than its moons, although it has recently completed some close flybys of Europa and Ganymede, and soon will swoop past volcanic Io.

But Juice is also expected to be beaten to Jupiter by another new NASA mission, Europa Clipper, which is launching in October 2024. It is scheduled to arrive at the Jovian system in April 2030, owing to its more powerful launch vehicle, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. But there is no competition; the two missions are intended to work together.

“There will be two spacecraft at the same time looking at Jupiter and its moons,” Dr. Aschbacher said. “There’s a lot of science to be gained from that.”

The two missions were born in 2008 in response to exciting results from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft , which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.

“Galileo found this very intriguing magnetic signal that suggested there was a conductive ice layer beneath the shell of Europa,” said Louise Prockter of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, who is part of the Europa Clipper team.

Scientists now think that was a sign of a global ocean encompassing Europa’s interior.

Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018 suggest Europa may occasionally spurt its ocean up in plumes through cracks in its icy shell, at least 10 miles thick. This could provide a novel way to directly study the ocean and look for signs of life as Clipper darts over the moon’s surface, sometimes at an altitude as low as about 15 miles.

“We could potentially fly through a plume,” Dr. Prockter said.

The results of both Juice and Clipper will reveal whether to attempt a landing on a moon of Jupiter on a future mission, likely at Europa, to directly look for life in the ocean, something NASA has proposed. Such a mission could be two decades away, but its scientific value is immense. Dr. Aschbacher said Europe was interested in something similar.

“We have discussed a sample return mission from one of the icy moons,” he said, which would bring materials back to Earth for closer study. “What we learn from Juice will be an extremely important input to that.”

For now, the spotlight is Juice’s, the first of a new era of spacecraft specifically designed to hunt oceans on alien worlds. “I can’t wait,” Dr. Dougherty said. “This is the next step.”

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Nasa’s juno mission expands into the future, jet propulsion laboratory, an evolving orbit, more about the mission.

The spacecraft, which has been gathering data on the gas giant since July 2016, will become an explorer of the full Jovian system – Jupiter and its rings and moons.

NASA has authorized a mission extension for its Juno spacecraft exploring Jupiter. The agency’s most distant planetary orbiter will now continue its investigation of the solar system’s largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life. This expansion tasks Juno with becoming an explorer of the full Jovian system – Jupiter and its rings and moons – with multiple rendezvous planned for three of Jupiter’s most intriguing Galilean moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Io.

“Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one revelation after another about the inner workings of this massive gas giant,” said principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “With the extended mission, we will answer fundamental questions that arose during Juno’s prime mission while reaching beyond the planet to explore Jupiter’s ring system and Galilean satellites.”

Proposed in 2003 and launched in 2011, Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. The prime mission will be completed in July 2021. The extended mission involves 42 additional orbits, including close passes of Jupiter’s north polar cyclones; flybys of Ganymede, Europa, and Io; as well as the first extensive exploration of the faint rings encircling the planet.

“By extending the science goals of this important orbiting observatory, the Juno team will start tackling a breadth of science historically required of flagships,” said Lori Glaze, planetary science division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This represents an efficient and innovative advance for NASA’s solar system exploration strategy.”

The data Juno collects will contribute to the goals of the next generation of missions to the Jovian system – NASA’s Europa Clipper and the ESA (European Space Agency) JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. Juno’s investigation of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io addresses many science goals identified by the National Academy of Sciences for a future Io explorer mission.

The extended mission’s science campaigns will expand on discoveries Juno has already made about Jupiter’s interior structure, internal magnetic field, atmosphere (including polar cyclones, deep atmosphere, and aurora), and magnetosphere.

With three giant blades stretching out some 66 feet (20 meters) from its cylindrical, six-sided body, the Juno spacecraft is a dynamic engineering marvel, spinning to keep itself stable as it makes oval-shaped orbits around Jupiter. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“With this extension, Juno becomes its own follow-on mission,” said Steve Levin, Juno project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Close-up observations of the pole, radio occultations” – a remote sensing technique to measure properties of a planetary atmosphere or ring systems – “satellite flybys, and focused magnetic field studies combine to make a new mission, the next logical step in our exploration of the Jovian system.”

Jupiter’s enigmatic Great Blue Spot, an isolated patch of intense magnetic field near the planet’s equator, will be the target of a high-spatial-resolution magnetic survey during six flybys early in the extended mission. As Juno’s orbit evolves, multiple flybys of the moons Ganymede (2), Europa (3), and Io (11) are planned, as well as multiple passages through Jupiter’s tenuous rings.

Juno will also fly through the Europa and Io tori – ring-shaped clouds of ions – on multiple occasions, characterizing the radiation environment near these satellites to better prepare the Europa Clipper and JUICE missions for optimizing observation strategies and planning, science priorities, and mission design. The extended mission also adds a study of dust in Jupiter’s faint rings to Juno’s extensive list of science investigations.

The natural evolution of Juno’s orbit around the gas giant provides the wealth of new science opportunities that the extended mission capitalizes on. Every science pass sends the solar-powered spacecraft zooming low over Jupiter’s cloud tops, collecting data from a unique vantage point no other spacecraft has enjoyed.

The point during each orbit where Juno comes closest to the planet is called perijove (or PJ). Over the course of the mission, Juno’s perijoves have migrated northward, dramatically improving resolution over the northern hemisphere. The design of the extended mission takes advantage of the continued northward migration of these perijoves to sharpen its view of the multiple cyclones encircling the north pole while incorporating ring and Galilean moon flybys.

“The mission designers have done an amazing job crafting an extended mission that conserves the mission’s single most valuable onboard resource – fuel,” said Ed Hirst, the Juno project manager at JPL. “Gravity assists from multiple satellite flybys steer our spacecraft through the Jovian system while providing a wealth of science opportunities.” The satellite flybys also reduce Juno’s orbital period, which increases the total number of science orbits that can be obtained.”

The satellite encounters begin with a low-altitude flyby of Ganymede on June 7, 2021 (PJ34), which reduces the orbital period from about 53 days to 43 days. That flyby sets up a close flyby of Europa on Sept. 29, 2022 (PJ45), reducing the orbital period further to 38 days. A pair of close Io flybys, on Dec. 30, 2023 (PJ57), and Feb. 3, 2024 (PJ58), combine to reduce the orbital period to 33 days.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.

More information about Juno is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

https://www.facebook.com/NASASolarSystem

https://www.twitter.com/NASASolarSystem

DC Agle   Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.  818-393-9011  [email protected]

Grey Hautaluoma / Alana Johnson NASA Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501 [email protected] / [email protected]   

Deb Schmid Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio 210-522-2254 [email protected]

A composite picture shows the swirling clouds of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

NASA Probe Is About to Give the Best Ever Views of Jupiter

Once it goes into orbit on July 4, the Juno spacecraft will unlock some of Jupiter’s mysteries and send back amazing close-up images.

While most of America will be camped out in the gloaming awaiting the annual Independence Day fireworks, NASA scientists and engineers will be hoping for a less explosive celebration: the long-awaited arrival of the Juno spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter.

With three elongated solar arrays stretching away from its rotating body, Juno resembles a windmill peacefully spinning through space. But when it arrives at Jupiter at 11:18 ET on July 4, it will momentarily become one of the fastest human-made objects as it dives close to the massive planet and careens through its punishing radiation belts.

“Jupiter’s charged particle radiation belts are the most energetic and intense in the solar system,” says Juno scientist Barry Mauk of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. “They represent dangerous challenges to any spacecraft mission traveling to Jupiter.”

If it survives a dramatic 35-minute insertion maneuver, the spacecraft will settle into a stable polar orbit. Over the next 20 months, Juno will zip around Jupiter in 37 long orbits, spending a large chunk of time hundreds of thousands of miles away to avoid dallying in the radiation belts.

But the goals of the mission mean that Juno will also sweep closer to Jupiter than any previous spacecraft, diving near the clouds every two weeks. At its closest approach, Juno will glide just shy of Jupiter’s cloud tops, skimming only 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) away.

From that vantage point, Juno will use a suite of tools designed to unlock some of Jupiter’s deepest mysteries. With its eight onboard instruments , Juno seeks to explore Jupiter’s origins, study its intense radiation fields, and peer beneath its thick shroud of banded clouds.

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Getting a better understanding of how Jupiter formed is a key mission goal, said astrophysicist Scott Bolton , the principal investigator for the Juno mission, during a June 16 NASA mission briefing.

“How do you make the planets in our solar system? We want the recipe,” Bolton said. “Jupiter holds a unique position, because it was the first planet to form and has more of what Earth is made out of. Learning about that history is really critical to figuring out how we got here, and how we find other systems like ours elsewhere.”

That means Juno has a lot to do in its two years of service.

To better understand how Jupiter and other gas giants like it formed, scientists want to know how much water—and by extension, oxygen—Jupiter holds. This will be challenging even up close, given that Jupiter is 99 percent hydrogen and helium with a healthy dose of ammonia thrown in, all churning under enormous pressures that are difficult to replicate on Earth.

Theories for how Earth acquired its water are closely tied to Jupiter’s formation in the early days of the solar system, so understanding how much water the planet currently contains can give clues about its exact influence.

Juno will also help reveal Jupiter’s innermost heart. In part by studying fluctuations in the planet’s poorly understood gravitational and magnetic fields, scientists hope to create a better picture of the composition of the planet’s core. For instance, they aim to suss out whether it’s a dense knot of rock and ice, a deep sphere of molten hydrogen, or something else entirely.

The planet’s powerful magnetic fields are also a subject of study, requiring the probe’s instruments to be shielded by an unprecedented layer of protection inside Juno’s “radiation vault.”

“Juno’s wearing a suit of armor,” says Heidi Becker , the lead radiation monitoring investigator on the mission. With walls of titanium half an inch (1.2 centimeters) thick, the vault weighs roughly 400 pounds (880 kilograms) empty. But without it, Juno’s instruments would quickly be blinded by the huge population of electrons barreling around the planet at nearly the speed of light.

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“If we did nothing else, Juno would be experiencing a radiation dose of over 20 million rads, which would be like a human undergoing over 100 million dental X-rays in a little over a year,” says Becker.

Because of its spin as it orbits, Juno will also be able to peer outward into space to see the extent of the planet’s magnetic fields, which trap and circulate its radiation belts.

Juno will also get an up-close look at the planet’s spectacular x-ray auroras, thought to be generated by a complicated dynamic taking place between Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic field, and its 10-hour rotation cycle.

Take Your Best Shot

Meanwhile, the probe’s onboard JunoCam will give Earthlings their best high-quality glimpses of Jupiter. Unfortunately, the camera’s life span is fated to be much less than that of its non-optical counterparts; JunoCam is expected to survive only seven or eight orbits before succumbing to ruinous levels of radiation exposure .

Mission executive Diane Brown, at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., notes that the public can be involved in selecting targets for JunoCam imaging . The project team is currently accepting submissions, with more than 50 possible areas already identified, and voting will be enabled later this year on the JunoCam website to narrow down the list.

“We are very excited about the unique opportunity that JunoCam provides for citizen scientists,” says Brown, adding that NASA will also be asking the public to help process the images as they are transmitted.

All of Juno’s instruments will be turned off five days before it reaches Jupiter, but the team expects to release their first images on the day of arrival. Close-up images of the polar regions will be taken during the first full orbit on August 27 and may include pictures of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede.

Imke de Pater , a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, has made a career of studying Jupiter and its radiation. She’s eager to combine Earth-based data with the new measurements Juno will collect.

“Because of the Juno mission, there are many, many ground-based observers who have asked for telescope time at all different wavelengths, so we’re getting an incredible amount of data,” de Pater says. “With this, we can put together temperature maps and [chemical] species maps, ammonia and such, so the whole campaign together is very exciting.”

A better understanding of Jupiter’s environment will help smooth the way for future journeys to the planet’s icy moons, including an upcoming flyby mission to Europa . This frozen world is thought to contain a global subsurface ocean that may even host life.

To avoid unintentionally contaminating Europa or any of the rocky moons it eventually wants to visit, NASA will watch Juno sign off after one last pass at the mission's end—then send the probe plunging into Jupiter itself.

Follow Michelle Z. Donahue on Twitter .

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Will we ever be able to send humans to Jupiter?

We find out if we can make the gas giant and its moons destinations for future manned missions.

Sending humans to the largest planet in the Solar System is going to be a huge challenge. Image Credit: NASA

Asked by Adam Kirkham

Jupiter is not only a long way from the Earth, it also doesn’t have a solid surface for us to land on. This means that a crewed mission to the largest planet in the Solar System has not even entered the realms of consideration.

On average Jupiter is 1,500 to 2,500 times further away from the Earth than the Moon is (the furthest we have ever sent humans outside our planet’s atmosphere), which would mean a journey far longer than we have ever attempted. Any potential explorers would have to ride in a custom airship and drift through the gases. Some of Jupiter’s moons present much more alluring targets, however, but until astronauts are capable of surviving the journey, the vast distance to the gas giant will prove a big obstacle.

Keep up to date with the latest reviews in All About Space – available every month for just £4.99. Get 5 issues of All About Space for just £5 with our latest  offer ! 

Tags: Airship , astronauts , Atmosphere , Callisto , Earth , Europa , ganymede , gas giant , Io , Jupiter , Moon , space exploration

What if you tried to land on Jupiter?

Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: The best way to explore a new world is to land on it. That's why humans have sent spacecraft to the Moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn's moon, Titan, and more.

But there are a few places in the solar system we will never understand as well as we'd like. One of them is Jupiter.

Jupiter is made of mostly hydrogen and helium gas. So, trying to land on it would be like trying to land on a cloud here on Earth. There's no outer crust to break your fall on Jupiter. Just an endless stretch of atmosphere.

The big question, then, is: Could you fall through one end of Jupiter and out the other? It turns out, you wouldn't even make it halfway. Here's what would happen if you tried to land on Jupiter.

*It's important to note that we feature the Lunar Lander for the first half of the descent. In reality, the Lunar Lander is relatively delicate compared to, say, NASA's Orion spacecraft. Therefore, the Lunar Lander would not be used for a mission to land on any world that contains an atmosphere, including Jupiter. However, any spacecraft, no matter how robust, would not survive for long in Jupiter, so the Lunar Lander is as good of a choice as any for this hypothetical scenario. 

First things first, Jupiter's atmosphere has no oxygen. So make sure you bring plenty with you to breathe. The next problem is the scorching temperatures. So pack an air conditioner. Now, you're ready for a journey of epic proportions.

For scale, here's how many Earths you could stack from Jupiter's center. As you enter the top of the atmosphere, you're be traveling at 110,000 mph under the pull of Jupiter's gravity.

But brace yourself. You'll quickly hit the denser atmosphere below, which will hit you like a wall. It won't be enough to stop you, though.

After about 3 minutes you'll reach the cloud tops 155 miles down. Here, you'll experience the full brunt of Jupiter's rotation. Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet in our solar system. One day lasts about 9.5 Earth hours. This creates powerful winds that can whip around the planet at more than 300 mph.

About 75 miles below the clouds, you reach the limit of human exploration. The Galileo probe made it this far when it dove into Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995. It only lasted 58 minutes before losing contact and was eventually destroyed by the crushing pressures.

Down here, the pressure is nearly 100 times what it is at Earth's surface.  And you won't be able to see anything, so you'll have to rely on instruments to explore your surroundings.

By 430 miles down, the pressure is 1,150 times higher. You might survive down here if you were in a spacecraft built like the Trieste submarine — the deepest diving submarine on Earth. Any deeper and the pressure and temperature will be too great for a spacecraft to endure.

However, let's say you could find a way to descend even farther. You will uncover some of Jupiter's grandest mysteries. But, sadly, you'll have no way to tell anyone. Jupiter's deep atmosphere absorbs radio waves, so you'll be shut off from the outside world— unable to communicate.

Once you've reached 2,500 miles down, the temperature is 6,100 ºF.  That's hot enough to melt tungsten, the metal with the highest melting point in the Universe. At this point, you will have been falling for at least 12 hours. And you won't even be halfway through.

At 13,000 miles down, you reach Jupiter's innermost layer. Here the pressure is 2 million times stronger than at Earth's surface. And the temperature is hotter than the surface of the sun. These conditions are so extreme they change the chemistry of the hydrogen around you. Hydrogen molecules are forced so close together that their electrons break lose, forming an unusual substance called metallic hydrogen. Metallic hydrogen is highly reflective. So, if you tried using lights to see down here it would be impossible.

And it's as dense as a rock. So, as you travel deeper, the buoyancy force from the metallic hydrogen counteracts gravity's downward pull.  Eventually, that buoyancy will shoot you back up until gravity pulls you back down, sort of like a yo-yo. And when those two forces equal, you'll be left free-floating in mid-Jupiter, unable to move up or down, and no way to escape!

Suffice it say, trying to land on Jupiter is a bad idea. We may never see what's beneath those majestic clouds. But we can still study and admire this mysterious planet from afar.

A special thanks to  Kunio Sayanagi at Hampton University, for his help with this video.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in February 2018.

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Every week, the readers of our space newsletter,  The Airlock , send in their questions for space reporter  Neel V. Patel  to answer. This week: Can we go to Jupiter?

Once we move past the asteroid belt, is it realistic to assume there is a chance humans could ever explore any of the gas giants, like Jupiter, really close to its atmosphere? And what that would look like?  —Sarah

Jupiter, like the other gas giants, doesn’t have a rocky surface, but that doesn’t mean it’s just a massive cloud floating through the vacuum of space. It’s made up of mostly helium and hydrogen, and as you move from the outer layers of the atmosphere toward the deeper parts, that gas grows denser and the pressures become more extreme. Temperatures quickly rise. In 1995, NASA’s Galileo mission sent a probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere; it broke up at about 75 miles in depth. Pressures here are over 100 times more intense than anything on Earth. At the innermost layers of Jupiter that are 13,000 miles deep, the pressure is 2 million times stronger than what’s experienced at sea level on Earth, and temperatures are hotter than the sun’s surface.

So clearly, no human is going to be able to venture too far down into Jupiter’s depths. But would it be safe to simply orbit the planet? Perhaps we could establish an orbital space station, right?

Well, there’s another big problem when it comes to Jupiter: radiation. The biggest planet in the solar system also boasts its most powerful magnetosphere. These magnetic fields charge up  particles in the vicinity, accelerating them to extreme speeds that can fry a spacecraft’s electronics in moments. Spaceflight engineers have to figure out an orbit and spacecraft design that will reduce the exposure to this radiation. NASA figured this out with the triple-arrayed, perpetually spinning Juno spacecraft , but it doesn’t look as if this would be a feasible design for a human spacecraft. 

Instead, for a crewed spacecraft to safely orbit or fly past Jupiter, it would have to keep a pretty significant distance away from the planet. 

Not every gas giant in the solar system is like this, but they all also come with various other problems that would make it difficult for humans to visit up close. Neptune, for instance, has the strongest winds in the solar system, reaching speeds of up 1,100 miles per hour. Both Neptune and Uranus are “ice giants” that have elements and compounds heavier than helium and hydrogen, like methane and ammonia. These denser materials could make it even harder for a spacecraft to plunge into these atmospheres, since the spacecraft would be damaged sooner. Saturn’s own magnetosphere is smaller than Jupiter’s but still 578 times more powerful than Earth’s, so radiation would still be a huge issue to contend with. 

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Visions of the Future

JPL's Exoplanet Travel Bureau presents: Visions of the Future

Imagination is our window into the future. At NASA/JPL we strive to be bold in advancing the edge of possibility so that someday, with the help of new generations of innovators and explorers, these visions of the future can become a reality. As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get copies of these posters from NASA or JPL? The images are free for you to print. Please consult the JPL Image Use Policy for further details.

Is it okay for me to print them out myself and display them? Download the full size posters above so that you can print them and hang on your walls and share with us on Facebook or Twitter .

Do you have other sizes that you haven’t posted, or can you make new ones in a different size? The current sizes on the website are what are currently available, which are 20 x 30 inches.

Background: A creative team of visual strategists at JPL, known as " The Studio ," created the poster series, which is titled "Visions of the Future." Nine artists, designers, and illustrators were involved in designing the 14 posters, which are the result of many brainstorming sessions with JPL scientists, engineers, and expert communicators. Each poster went through a number of concepts and revisions, and each was made better with feedback from the JPL experts.

David Delgado, creative strategy: The posters began as a series about exoplanets -- planets orbiting other stars -- to celebrate NASA's study of them. (The NASA program that focuses on finding and studying exoplanets is managed by JPL.) Later, the director of JPL was on vacation at the Grand Canyon with his wife, and they saw a similarly styled poster that reminded them of the exoplanet posters. They suggested it might be wonderful to give a similar treatment to the amazing destinations in our solar system that JPL is currently exploring as part of NASA. And they were right!

The point was to share a sense of things on the edge of possibility that are closely tied to the work our people are doing today. The JPL director has called our people "architects of the future."

As for the style, we gravitated to the style of the old posters the WPA created for the national parks. There's a nostalgia for that era that just feels good.

Joby Harris, illustrator: The old WPA posters did a really great job delivering a feeling about a far-off destination. They were created at a time when color photography was not very advanced, in order to capture the beauty of the national parks from a human perspective. These posters show places in our solar system (and beyond) that likewise haven't been photographed on a human scale yet -- or in the case of the exoplanets might never be, at least not for a long time. It seemed a perfect way to help people imagine these strange, new worlds.

Delgado: The WPA poster style is beloved, and other artists have embraced it before us. Our unique take was to take one specific thing about the place and focus on the science of it. We chose exoplanets that had really interesting, strange qualities, and everything about the poster was designed to amplify the concept. The same model guided us for the posters that focus on destinations in the solar system.

Lois Kim, typography: We worked hard to get the typography right, since that was a very distinctive element in creating the character of those old posters. We wanted to create a retro-future feel, so we didn't adhere exactly to the period styles, but they definitely informed the design. The Venus poster has a very curvy, flowy font, for example, to evoke a sense of the clouds.

Creative Strategy: Dan Goods, David Delgado

Illustrators:

• Liz Barrios De La Torre ( Ceres , Europa )
• Stefan Bucher ( Jupiter Design)
• Invisible Creature ( Grand Tour , Mars , Enceladus )
• Joby Harris ( Kepler 16b , Earth , Kepler 186f , PSO J318.5-22 , Titan )
• Jessie Kawata ( Venus )
• Lois Kim (Typography for Venus and Europa )
• Ron Miller ( Jupiter Illustration)

The Grand Tour Delgado: The Grand Tour is the route the Voyager 2 spacecraft took to visit all four outer planets. We imagined this would be something people might want to repeat, since it's a flight plan that's possible every 175 years or so, when the outer planets are arranged just right. In the future, it might be considered "quaint" to experience a gravity assist.

Harris: Style-wise, the design came from some references we looked at from transparency overlays from the 1960s. It initially had a black background, but we inverted it and the design just clicked.

Mars Delgado: This was the very last poster we produced for the series. We wanted to imagine a future time where humans are on Mars, and their history would revere the robotic pioneers that came first.

There are a few fun things to point out here. You can see the silhouette of Olympus Mons in the background, there's a hint of underground water, and the rover's wheel is spelling out JPL on the ground in Morse code, just like the Curiosity rover does (for what the rover drivers call "visual odometry.")

Venus Harris: We tried a few different designs for Venus, starting with the surface, but the intent was to show things people might find pleasant, and Venus' surface is anything but.

Kim: The scene is of a city in the clouds during a transit of Mercury across the sun. The Morse code for the number 9 is written on the side (signifying the inhabitants are "on cloud 9").

Ceres Delgado: The big sign in this poster is inspired by the gateway in Reno that announces it as "the biggest little city in the world." We kind of thought that might suit Ceres. It's the biggest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and probably has a lot of water ice underground.

Harris: We designed all of these posters as a group, and liked the way this looked with a very muted color palette.

Jupiter Delgado: The basis for this poster was a Jupiter cloudscape by artist Ron Miller, who was very gracious in allowing us to modify his painting. In talking with a lead scientist on NASA's Juno mission (which is getting to Jupiter in July), we locked onto his description of the brilliant auroras Jupiter has. It would truly be a sight to see.

Enceladus Delgado: Saturn's moon Enceladus is all about the plumes erupting from its south pole. At our first brainstorming session, someone called the plumes "Cold Faithful," and that helped crystallize this idea quite quickly.

There's no right way up in space, so for fun, we turned the surface upside down from the point of view of the visitors in the picture.

Kepler-186f Harris: The concept here was about how plants might be very different colors on planets around other stars, since the star's spectrum of light would be different. So we played on an old saying, with "the grass is always redder on the other side of the fence."

There's whimsy in the design, making people wonder why there would be this white picket fence on an alien planet.

HD 40307g | Super Earth Delgado: As we discussed ideas for a poster about super Earths -- bigger planets, more massive, with more gravity -- we asked, "Why would that be a cool place to visit?"

We saw an ad for people jumping off mountains in the Alps wearing squirrel suits, and it hit us that this could be a planet for thrill-seekers.

Kepler-16b Harris: This was the first poster we designed in the series. The concept was really clear from the very beginning and set the tone for everything that came after. When we showed it to the scientists, the only thing they wanted us to tweak was to make the color of one of the stars (and the shadow it casts) different from the other star.

PSO J318.5-22

Harris: This design fell right out of the tagline, "where the nightlife never ends," which was perfect for a wandering planet that has no star.

We wanted to evoke a sense of elegance, so we leaned heavily on 1930s art deco for this one. It's sort of retro-future fantasy, but again, there's a bit of real science inspiring it.

How long does it take to get to Jupiter?

We explore how long it takes to get to Jupiter and the factors that affect the journey to the gas giant.

How far away is Jupiter?

• Travel time at the speed of light
• Traveling on fastest spacecraft
• Mission travel times

Additional resources

Bibliography.

If you wanted to travel to Jupiter, how long would it take? The answer depends on a number of factors ranging from the positions of Earth and Jupiter to the technology that would propel you there. 

Here we take a look at how long a trip to Jupiter would take using available technology and explore the travel times of previous missions to the Jovian neighborhood. 

Currently, the spacecraft that took the shortest amount of time to reach Jupiter was NASA's New Horizons , zipping over to the gas giant in 405 days, or 1 year, 1 month and 9 days for a 2007 flyby. 

Related: Jupiter missions: Past, present and future  

To determine how long it would take to reach Jupiter, we must first know the distance between Earth and the gas giant. 

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun but the distance between Earth and Jupiter is constantly changing as they orbit the sun in elliptical, or oval-shaped paths. 

When the two planets are at their closest point to one another, the distance to Jupiter is 365 million miles (588 million kilometers). The average distance between Earth and Jupiter is 444 million miles (714 million km), according to the science communication site The Nine Planets . At the farthest point in its orbit, the gas giant lies 601 million miles (968 million km) away.

How long would it take to travel to Jupiter at the speed of light?

Light travels at approximately 186,282 miles per second (299,792 km per second). Therefore, a light shining from Jupiter would take the following amount of time to reach Earth (or vice versa): 

• Closest approach: 33 minutes 
• Farthest approach: 54  minutes 
• Average distance: 40 minutes  

Fastest spacecraft so far

The fastest spacecraft is NASA's Parker Solar Probe , which keeps breaking its own speed records as it moves closer to the sun . On Nov 21, 2021, the Parker Solar Probe reached a top speed of 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second during its 10th close flyby of our star, which translates to an eye-watering 364,621 mph (586,000 kph). According to a NASA statement , when the Parker Solar Probe comes within 4 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface in December 2024, the spacecraft's speed will top 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 km/h)!

So if you were theoretically able to hitch a ride on the Parker Solar Probe and take it on a detour from its sun-focused mission to travel in a straight line out to Jupiter, traveling at the speeds the probe reaches during its 10th flyby (101 miles per second), the time it would take you to get to Jupiter would be: 

• Closest approach: 42 days 
• Farthest approach: 69 days 
• Average distance: 51 days 

The problems with calculating travel times to Jupiter

Of course, the problem with the previous calculations is that they measure the distance between the two planets as a straight line. If you were to travel between Earth and Jupiter when they are at their farthest distance apart, the trip would involve a path directly through the sun; therefore any spacecraft would have to move in orbit around the solar system's star. 

Although this isn't a problem for a trip made during the two planets' closest approach, when they are both on the same side of the sun, the trip is not without complications. The previously calculated travel times also assume that the two planets remain at a constant distance; that is, when a probe is launched from Earth while the two planets are at their closest approach, Jupiter would remain the same distance away over the period of time it takes the probe to reach the gas giant.

In reality, however, the planets are moving at different rates during their orbits around the sun. Engineers must calculate the ideal orbits for sending a spacecraft from Earth to Jupiter. Like throwing a dart at a moving target from a moving vehicle, they must calculate where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives, not where it is when it leaves Earth. 

It's also not feasible to travel as fast as you can possibly go if your aim is to eventually orbit your target planet. Spacecraft need to arrive slowly enough to be able to perform orbit insertion maneuvers and not just zip straight past their destinations.

Engineers' calculations factor in not only the distance needed to travel but also the fuel efficiency of each particular spacecraft. Long-distance trips use gravity assist maneuvers to slingshot a spacecraft past planetary bodies and "steal" some of a planet's or other body's momentum to give the spacecraft a helpful nudge towards their intended destination. NASA's Jupiter explorer Juno performed an Earth flyby two years after its launch in order to boost the spacecraft's speed so that it could reach the gas giant, according to NASA . ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer ( JUICE ) mission will receive three gravity assists from Earth and one from Venus before it reaches the Jovian neighborhood. 

How long do missions take to get to Jupiter?

Here is a list of how long it took previous missions to reach Jupiter as well as the estimated travel time for upcoming missions. Note how much longer the travel time is for missions that orbited Jupiter (e.g. Galileo and Juno) compared to those launched with the aim of sailing straight past. 

• Pioneer 10 : 642 days, or 1 year 9 months and 2 days 
• Pioneer 11 : 606 days, or 1 year 7 months and 27 days 
• Voyager 1 : 546 days, or 1 year and 6 months 
• Voyager 2 : 688 days, or 1 year, 10 months and 19 days
• Galileo: 2,241 days, or 6 years, 1 month and 19 days
• Ulysses: 490 days, or 1 year, 4 months and 2 days    
• Cassini-Huygens : 1,172 days, or 3 years, 2 months and 15 days  
• New Horizons: 405 days or 1 year, 1 month and 9 days
• Juno: 1,796 days or 4 years and 11 months  

Upcoming missions estimated travel time:  

•   JUICE: 8 years 
• Europa Clipper : 5 years and 6 months 

Learn more about the missions that have ventured to Jupiter with these resources from NASA . Explore NASA's Juno mission in more detail here on their official mission page . What if we actually made it to Jupiter? Check out this article from Business Insider that explains what would happen if humans tries to land on the gas giant.  

Juno Earth flyby. NASA. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/earthflyby.html#.ZDa0f3bMKUl

Hatfield, M. (2021, November 10). Space dust presents opportunities, challenges as Parker solar probe speeds back toward the sun. NASA. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://blogs.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe/2021/11/10/space-dust-presents-opportunities-challenges-as-parker-solar-probe-speeds-back-toward-the-sun/

How far is Jupiter from Earth?: Distance, km, how long & facts. The Nine Planets. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://nineplanets.org/questions/how-far-is-jupiter-from-earth/

Juice's journey to Jupiter. ESA. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/12/Juice_s_journey_to_Jupiter

Jupiter's statistics. Jupiter Statistics: Size, Orbit, Moons, Rings, Temperature, Mythology - Windows to the Universe. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://www.windows2universe.org/?page=%2Fjupiter%2Fstatistics.html  

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Daisy Dobrijevic joined Space.com in February 2022 having previously worked for our sister publication All About Space magazine as a staff writer. Before joining us, Daisy completed an editorial internship with the BBC Sky at Night Magazine and worked at the National Space Centre in Leicester, U.K., where she enjoyed communicating space science to the public. In 2021, Daisy completed a PhD in plant physiology and also holds a Master's in Environmental Science, she is currently based in Nottingham, U.K. Daisy is passionate about all things space, with a penchant for solar activity and space weather. She has a strong interest in astrotourism and loves nothing more than a good northern lights chase! 

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Pushing the Limits of Sub-Kilowatt Electric Propulsion Technology to Enable Planetary Exploration and Commercial Mission Concepts

NASA has developed an advanced propulsion technology to facilitate future planetary exploration missions using small spacecraft. Not only will this technology enable new types of planetary science missions, one of NASA’s commercial partners is already preparing to use it for another purpose—to extend the lifetimes of spacecraft that are already in orbit. Identifying the opportunity for industry to use this new technology not only advances NASA’s goal of technology commercialization, it could potentially create a path for NASA to acquire this important technology from industry for use in future planetary missions.

The New Technology

Planetary science missions using small spacecraft will be required to perform challenging propulsive maneuvers—such as achieving planetary escape velocities, orbit capture, and more—that require a velocity change (delta-v) capability well in excess of typical commercial needs and the current state-of-the-art. Therefore, the #1 enabling technology for these small spacecraft missions is an electric propulsion system that can execute these high-delta-v maneuvers. The propulsion system must operate using low power (sub-kilowatt) and have high-propellant throughput (i.e., the capability to use a high total mass of propellant over its lifetime) to enable the impulse required to execute these maneuvers.

After many years of research and development, researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) have created a small spacecraft electric propulsion system to meet these needs—the NASA-H71M sub-kilowatt Hall-effect thruster. In addition, the successful commercialization of this new thruster will soon provide at least one such solution to enable the next generation of small spacecraft science missions requiring up to an amazing 8 km/s of delta-v. This technical feat was accomplished by the miniaturization of many advanced high-power solar electric propulsion technologies developed over the last decade for applications such as the Power and Propulsion Element of Gateway , humanity’s first space station around the Moon.

Benefits of This Technology for Planetary Exploration

Small spacecraft using the NASA-H71M electric propulsion technology will be able to independently maneuver from low-Earth orbit (LEO) to the Moon or even from a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to Mars. This capability is especially remarkable because commercial launch opportunities to LEO and GTO have become routine, and the excess launch capacity of such missions is often sold at low cost to deploy secondary spacecraft. The ability to conduct missions that originate from these near-Earth orbits can greatly increase the cadence and lower the cost of lunar and Mars science missions.

This propulsion capability will also increase the reach of secondary spacecraft, which have been historically limited to scientific targets that align with the primary mission’s launch trajectory. This new technology will enable secondary missions to substantially deviate from the primary mission’s trajectory, which will facilitate exploration of a wider range of scientific targets.

In addition, these secondary spacecraft science missions would typically have only a short period of time to collect data during a high-speed flyby of a distant body. This greater propulsive capability will allow deceleration and orbital insertion at planetoids for long-term scientific study.

Furthermore, small spacecraft outfitted with such significant propulsive capability will be better equipped to manage late-stage changes to the primary mission’s launch trajectory. Such changes are frequently a top risk for small spacecraft science missions with limited onboard propulsive capability that depend on the initial launch trajectory to reach their science target.

Commercial Applications

The megaconstellations of small spacecraft now forming in low-Earth orbits have made low-power Hall-effect thrusters the most abundant electric propulsion system used in space today. These systems use propellant very efficiently, which allows for orbit insertion, de-orbiting, and many years of collision avoidance and re-phasing. However, the cost-conscious design of these commercial electric propulsion systems has inevitably limited their lifetime capability to typically less than a few thousand hours of operation and these systems can only process about 10% or less of a small spacecraft’s initial mass in propellant.

By contrast, planetary science missions benefiting from the NASA-H71M electric propulsion system technology could operate for 15,000 hours and process over 30% of the small spacecraft’s initial mass in propellant. This game-changing capability is well beyond the needs of most commercial LEO missions and comes at a cost premium that makes commercialization for such applications unlikely. Therefore, NASA sought and continues to seek partnerships with companies developing innovative commercial small spacecraft mission concepts with unusually large propellant throughput requirements.

One partner that will soon use the licensed NASA electric propulsion technology in a commercial small spacecraft application is SpaceLogistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman. The Mission Extension Pod (MEP) satellite servicing vehicle is equipped with a pair of Northrop Grumman NGHT-1X Hall-effect thrusters, whose design is based on the NASA-H71M. The small spacecraft’s large propulsive capability will allow it to reach geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) where it will be mounted on a far larger satellite.  Once installed, the MEP will serve as a “propulsion jet pack” to extend the life of its host spacecraft for at least six years.

Northrop Grumman is currently conducting a long duration wear test (LDWT) of the NGHT-1X in GRC’s Vacuum Facility 11 to demonstrate its full lifetime operational capability. The LDWT is funded by Northrop Grumman through a fully reimbursable Space Act Agreement. The first MEP spacecraft are expected to launch in 2025, where they will extend the life of three GEO communication satellites.

Collaborating with U.S. industry to find small spacecraft applications with propulsive requirements similar to future NASA planetary science missions not only supports U.S. industry in remaining a global leader in commercial space systems but creates new commercial opportunities for NASA to acquire these important technologies as planetary missions require them.

NASA continues to mature the H71M electric propulsion technologies to expand the range of data and documentation available to U.S. industry for the purpose of developing similarly advanced and highly capable low-power electric propulsion devices.

Project Lead

Dr. Gabriel F. Benavides, NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC)

Sponsoring Organizations

Planetary Science Division - Planetary Exploration Science Technology Office (PESTO); Space Operations Mission Directorate - Commercial Space Capabilities Office (CSCO); Space Technology Mission Directorate - Game Changing Development (GCD) program; Space Technology Mission Directorate - Small Spacecraft Technology (SST) program

Related Terms

• Planetary Science
• Planetary Science Division
• Science-enabling Technology
• Space Operations Mission Directorate
• Space Technology Mission Directorate
• Technology Highlights

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Politics | Florida’s six-week abortion ban: Democrats want…

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Politics | florida’s six-week abortion ban: democrats want voters to hold republicans responsible.

With just hours left before Florida implements its strict new law banning almost all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, Democrats are working overtime to make sure voters know who they should hold responsible: Republicans.

“Wednesday is going to mark the start of a dark, life-threatening chapter for women in Florida and across the South,” U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, said Monday. “It’s when Florida’s new six-week abortion ban passed by some Tallahassee politicians takes effect.”

“Women’s lives are at risk and Florida Democrats will continue to hold Republicans accountable for this dangerous ban from now to November,” state Democratic Chair Nikki Fried said last week in another news conference. “As Republicans who created this problem here in our state and across our country, they will have blood on their hands as we are dealing with the health care crisis that they created. Women will die.”

Fried vowed that Republicans would have to “defend their position every single day from now until November.”

Her position reflects most Democratic elected officials and party leaders who view the new restrictions as morally wrong, a threat to women’s health, and government interference in what should be decisions between a pregnant woman and her doctor.

They’re wrong, said Tami Donnally, former longtime vice chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party and a candidate in the August primary for the post of state Republican committeewoman.

“I believe and have always believed that life begins at conception,” Donnally said in a phone interview. “I believe it’ll be a light day for the ones who have the right to life and will get to live. It will be a bright day for them.”

Like most Republican elected officials and party leaders, she views the new restrictions as a moral imperative to reduce the number of abortions, which she regards as ending a human life.

Beyond the ethical and medical considerations, there are significant political implications of the new law in Florida — and beyond.

Six-week ban

The 2002 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which for decades had provided constitutional protection for abortion, came about because of former President Donald Trump’s nomination of three anti-abortion justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the overturning of Roe allowed Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans who control the Florida Legislature to pass the state law that goes into effect on Wednesday.

The new law bans virtually all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, which Frankel said is “a near total ban” because many women are not even aware they are pregnant until after six weeks.

Frankel warned of a “cruel summer ahead.” Florida was the last remaining option in the southeast U.S. as a place women could obtain abortions. “On Wednesday, access to legal abortion is effectively eliminated in the south,” she said standing next to a map showing the states with strict abortion restrictions.

Democratic efforts

Democrats are decrying the law daily, talking about Republicans’ positions and, like Fried, warning of political repercussions. Others, like Frankel, are championing the proposed amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution.

Frankel, whose West Palm Beach news conference was arranged by her official government office, said the issue “is not political, this is not a Republican versus Democrat. This is about women having the freedom to make their own health care decisions that affect their families and their future.”

Also on Monday, former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, sent a mobile billboard to U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s hometown of Naples and began running a Spanish-language digital ad to highlight his opposition to abortion rights.

Mucarsel-Powel has made the issue a central theme of her candidacy, traveling the state in a “Florida Freedom Tour.” Surrogates held events in West Palm Beach on Thursday, Orlando on Friday and have one planned for Tallahassee on Tuesday to talk about the Republican senator and abortion.

On Tuesday, Fried and chairs from three other states’ Democratic parties are holding a news conference to highlight Florida’s new law and state Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book of Broward is holding her own news conference on the issue.

And eight days before the ban’s effective date, President Joe Biden traveled to Tampa to talk about abortion rights. On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris brings her “Fight For Reproductive Freedoms” tour to Jacksonville.

Fran Sachs, the former president of Emergency Medical Assistance Inc., a local abortion fund, appeared with Frankel and described her experience with a “much-wanted pregnancy” that she said had to be terminated because of a severe fetal abnormality.

“I was at 12 weeks at that point,” she said during the new conference. “If that would happen to me today, I would have to fly out of state to get the care that I needed. And it’s not tenable.”

The fund helps people who are unable to pay for abortions, helps people get appointments in other states and pays some transportation, lodging and food.

Jeffrey Litt, a Jupiter obstetrician-gynecologist, said the six-week ban will prevent treatment of many medical conditions, including “early miscarriages, pregnancies in unknown locations like tubal pregnancies, and second trimester complications.”

Ultimately, he said, “Women will die in some circumstances.”

Republican view

Kevin Neal, chair of the Palm Beach Republican Party, said Democrats are trying to distract voters.

“It seems like the Democrats are trying to make this election about one issue in an effort to shift voters’ focus away from their failed policies related to the economy, inflation, and the southern border among others,” Neal said via text, adding he doesn’t expect Republicans to suffer in November.

“Florida is thriving under Republican leadership and it is now the second largest red state in the U.S., where Republicans now have an over 900,000-registered voter advantage. We are anticipating a very strong Republican turnout at the polls in November as voters show their support for President Trump and our full slate of Republican candidates,” Neal said.

Tewannah Aman, executive director of Broward Right to Life, said in a phone interview that Democrats are desperate to counter what she sees as widespread public dissatisfaction with Biden on issues such as the southern U.S. border, the economy, protests at college campuses and “the lack of law and order.”

Abortion-rights advocates aren’t the only people planning for what happens on Wednesday. Aman said churches and abortion opponents would provide “counseling, material assistance, housing, and hope to women in unplanned pregnancies.”

David Donnally, senior pastor and president of Legacy Church Ministries in Lake Worth Beach, Palm Beach County coordinator for the Christian Family Coalition and Tami Donnally’s husband, said the six-week restriction “might” hurt the Republican Party. “I’m not a prophet in that sense where I’m going to tell you the future, but I understand that’s what they’re saying.”

He said that requires messaging to voters from the law’s supporters. “That’s why the Christian Family Coalition and people like me and other conservatives have to say, ‘Listen. We’re not trying to punish you or be mean to you but protect the most innocent among us, which is a baby. And they have no voice.'”

Will it work?

Florida Democrats hope voters angry about abortion restrictions will help them reverse some of their political losses in recent years.

Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University, said abortion “certainly is a motivating issue for a significant portion of the Democratic base. Especially in a state like Florida, where turnout has not been great, you can see where it makes sense to talk about this issue as way to motivate their voters.”

So far, Wagner said ballot questions similar to the one Florida voters will decide on this fall haven’t shown clear effects for candidates at the top of the ticket and hasn’t produced a sea change in states’ political identities. But, he added, there are some indications that support for abortion rights has helped some candidates for lower office.

“Democrats in Florida have to find a way to convince voters that they need to come out and vote, and this is certainly one significant way to do that. It can’t be the only way, but it makes sense that they’re vocal on this issue, because it does resonate with a good number of Florida voters across the political spectrum,” Wagner said.

A Monmouth University national poll released Monday found 33% of voters said abortion would determine how they vote in the presidential race, slightly behind inflation at 38% and economic growth and jobs at 37%. Immigration was cited by 33%.

Abortion was the top issue for Democrats at 44%, and cited by 26% of Republicans, 28% of independents, 38% of women, and 27% of men.

A nationwide Quinnipiac University poll released last week found 34% of voters think abortion should be legal in all cases and 32% said it should be legal in most cases. The poll found 22% said it should be illegal in most cases, and 4% said it should be illegal in all cases.

Presidential politics

Although Democrats publicly profess that they hope Biden wins the state, there isn’t — so far — evidence that they have a chance to win the 30 electoral votes in increasingly Republican Florida.

Biden and Harris have a somewhat different mission than state Democrats. For the presidential ticket, it’s politically useful for them to use Florida as an illustration of what happens when Republicans have power, hoping to show the rest of the country why they should vote to reelect the president, and why they should be afraid of another Trump presidency.

The visits can “highlight a more national story that they can pitch to other states, potentially ones where the Democrats have a stronger chance of winning,” Wagner said.

It also helps keep the Biden campaign alive in case circumstances change. “I think the president would like to put some pressure on the state of Florida to see in the upcoming months they can close the gap in some of the polling to make Florida a little more competitive.”

Anthony Man can be reached at [email protected] and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.

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