Unbroken, Here's How NASA Saves Cameras From Planet Jupiter's High Radiation

JAKARTA NASA almost failed to conduct an observer on Io, the month from Jupiter, in December 2023. Fortunately, JunoCam's camera, which had problems, was saved from a very far distance.

The success of saving JunoCam was presented by NASA at the Nuclear and Space Radiation Effect Conference at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. NASA discusses how JunoCam cameras can survive radiation damage.

JunoCam is a colored camera whose optical unit is located outside the titanium walled radiation dome. This dome can protect sensitive electronic components for the instruments Juno carries. That way, they can survive in extreme environments.

Jupiter's surroundings are indeed challenging because the planet's radiation field is the most powerful in the solar system. With this situation, JunoCam was originally expected to operate up to Jupiter's first eight orbits, but what happened was more than that.

After passing through its first 34 orbits, JunoCam is still operating normally. This device still produces a variety of valuable scientific images. In its 47th orbit, this camera begins to experience problems due to radiation influences.

The damage was identified as getting worse after Juno passed its 56th orbit. During that period, all images produced by the JunoCam instrument were damaged. This is a big problem because JunoCam is one of the most important instruments.

Tim sudah menduga bahwa masalah ini berkaitan dengan radiation Jupiter, tetapi besar kerusakannya sulit untuk ditentukan karena JunoCam berada dalam jarak yang sangat jauh. Namun, upaya perbaikan tetap dilakukan oleh tim yang ada di Bumi.

Preliminary observations suggest that the voltage regulator was damaged. This is a vital component for JunoCam's power supply. With little recovery options, the team switched to a process called annealing, a material heating process before being wanted slowly.

"We ordered one JunoCam heater to raise the camera temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit much warmer than JunoCam's average temperature and waited with a breath held back to see the results," said Jacob Schaffner, JunoCam Imaging Engineer.

After the first annealing process was completed, JunoCam began producing sharp images for the next few orbits. However, JunoCam is again experiencing problems as the image is full of scratches and noise as it enters its 55th orbit.

The NASA team is also trying to do more extreme annealing, where the JunoCam heater is fully turned on to save the camera. The initial test image showed a slight increase until it finally started to improve drastically.

This strategy succeeded in making JunoCam produce the best image from the Io moon. The device captures Io's surface image within 1,500 kilometers with a detailed view of the north polar region. The region shows mountain blocks covered in sulfur dioxide ice and a volcano.