Hello Juno Project
On
October 9, 2013, the Juno spacecraft flew past Earth by gravity assist, it
received a massive boost in speed on track for a July 4, 2016 date with
Jupiter. To celebrate this event, Juno invited amateur radio operators to say
HI to Juno in morse code message. Juno had a sensor, a special kind of camera
set up to track faint stars, which allowed a view of the Earth and the moon.
The result was an intriguing, low-resolution view of what the Earth would look
from afar.
This is what earth would look like to space visitors
Juno’s
Waves instrument was tasked with measuring radio and plasma waves in Jupiter’s
magenetosphere, recorded amateur radio signals. This was a public outreach
effort to involved amateur radio operators from around the world. They were
invited to say HI to Juno by sending radio transmissions which carried the Same
Morse-coded message. It was a globe effort where operators from every continent
participated.
The Plasma wave instrument that received the radio frequency
In
Morse code, characters are formed using dots and dashes. The word, HI, is
formed by clicking four dits for HI, followed by a space and then two more dits
for the I. The HI message was going to be sent in the time of 30 seconds. So
within the ten minute cycle, amateur radio operator sent out six 30 second key
down intervals in 10 minutes. Juno did not decode the message but instead, the
Waves instrument date containing the message was shared by the Juno team after
the flyby.
HI Juno Project Mini Documentary
When we
went to NASA, we has the opportunity to see aerogel which provided insulation
and thermal conductivity. It was interesting to see a gel which had many useful
components for spacecraft. It was extremely light and easy to move. Aerogel is
made from silica.
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