Solar Energy ArticlesSolar Panels in NASA's Juno Spacecraft Juno spacecraft, as proposed to be launched by NASA on to Jupiter, is going to derive its power from the three massive solar panels. This project will constitute of the Juno spacecraft orbiting around the largest planet in the solar system up to 30 times around its poles. This is launched with a mission to probe the outer space for details regarding Jupiter's atmosphere, structure and magnetosphere. In this article, we are going to explore about Juno spacecraft details from the solar panels' perspective. The solar panels that power the Juno spacecraft face a major challenge particularly due to their massive size. Till now, progress reports on this project state that these panels have undergone successful testing, yet the behavior that they might exhibit in the outer space might be a different one. The Juno spacecraft is supposed to climb away from the earth and get launched into the outer space with a speed of 7 miles per second when the solar panels are unfolded to their full capacity. The solar panels are a major boon to the space research since the power stored in the spacecraft would have been significantly insufficient considering the distance of Jupiter from the earth. Jupiter is a little more than 5 times the distance between the sun and out planet earth. Hence massive power requirements arise from this project. The size of the solar panels have been made that are as large as the size of the cargo loaded on to the tractor-trailer that you would see typically on the national highways. Solid engineering requirements have been imposed on the same. Statistically, the size of the solar panels is 29 feet in length (8.9 meters), 9 feet in width (2.7 meters). With this effect, the solar panels, with the best of their efficiency will generate only enough electricity to power five of the standard home-use light bulbs. This amounts to 450 watts of electricity output generated by them. If the arrays were fine tuned in order to conduct operation on our planet, the power output would have been much higher to about 12 to 15 kilowatts of power. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V will escort the Juno spacecraft into the outer space. Atlas V will be triggered by the five solid rocket boosters that will ring the first stage of this complicated mission. It will commence the journey of the spacecraft from the earth's surface and will end at the Skid Strip of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is on board of the second largest cargo aircraft in the world. It is named as Volga-Dnieper Antonov AN-124-100 by the space research centers in Russia. The entire mission will be managed by a special team at the NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory which is located in Pasadena in the city of California. The principal investigator of the solar power derived from the massive solar panels installed on the Juno spacecraft is Mr. Scott Bolton. Scott is from the South West Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission serves many purposes. For beginners, it is a part of the New Frontiers' program. The entire above described program is managed at the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center which is located in Huntsville. The solar panels were designed specifically and developed in terms of the manufacturing processes by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colorado. It was also monitoring the build of the spacecraft. The launching and the handling related to the launch is the core responsibility of a special team at NASA's Launch Services program. It is a special wing of the Kennedy Space Research Center located in Florida. It is a division of the institute located at California in Pasadena. Related articles
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