Juno- The Spacecraft

695 Words2 Pages

There are many spacecrafts in our solar system that are observing planets, discovering new things, and even looking for signs of life. One of these spacecrafts, Juno, was sent into space on Friday, August 5th, 2011. Its main purpose is to travel to Jupiter and explore this giant gas planet a little more in depth. Despite the fact that it has been travelling for many years, it still has a little more than 2 years left till it reaches its destination. This is a long time travelling through the harsh surroundings of space. There are many factors that had to be considered while building Juno, such as the use of materials.
Materials is an important factor that is taken into consideration because the spacecraft must be specifically designed for its precise mission. For instance, Juno, which has to fly hundreds of millions of kilometers to reach its destination through extreme environments. In order to travel such a vast distance, the spacecraft requires a source of energy. Juno uses our sun’s constant energy to power itself, with the help of enormous solar panels that have a span of more than twenty meters. Since the sun produces lots of reusable energy as it fuses hydrogen into helium, Juno may keep running on solar energy until the sun dies. Furthermore, the spacecraft has to journey through extreme temperatures, without any air to circulate and keep the spacecraft from overheating or freezing. In order to protect Juno against these harsh temperatures, engineers coated it with a shiny skin of insulation, sometimes referred to as multi-layer insulation (MLI). This insulation makes the intense temperatures a little more mild. It is made up of many items, such as aluminum. Aluminum is a good insulator because it reflects the heat back to...

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...order to observe Jupiter in depth. It has been planned for many years in order for it to be succecsful on its mission. The crew in charge of designing and building Juno had to be informed as to what materials should be used and what limitations or implications this spacecraft would have.

Works Cited

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