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The spacecraft traveled a total distance of roughly 2.8 × 10 ^ 9 km (19 AU; 1.7 × 10 ^ 9 mi) to reach Jupiter. [20] The spacecraft was designed to orbit Jupiter 37 times over the course of its mission. This was originally planned to take 20 months. [4] [5]
Extra-close oppositions of Mars happen every 15 to 17 years, when we pass between Mars and the Sun around the time of its perihelion (closest point to the Sun in orbit). The minimum distance between Earth and Mars has been declining over the years, and in 2003 the minimum distance was 55.76 million km, nearer than any such encounter in almost ...
A launch period refers to the days that the rocket can launch to reach its intended orbit. A mission could have a period of 365 days in a year, a few weeks each month, [6] a few weeks every 26 months (e.g. Mars launch periods), [7] or a short period time that won't be repeated.
From the planetary frame of reference, the ship's speed will appear to be limited by the speed of light — it can approach the speed of light, but never reach it. If a ship is using 1 g constant acceleration, it will appear to get near the speed of light in about a year, and have traveled about half a light year in distance. For the middle of ...
The closest in the past 1,000 years was in 1761, when Mars and Jupiter appeared to the naked eye as a single bright object, according to Giorgini. Looking ahead, the year 2348 will be almost as close.
The first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter was the Galileo orbiter, which went into orbit around Jupiter on December 7, 1995. It orbited the planet for over seven years, making 35 orbits before it was destroyed during a controlled impact with Jupiter on September 21, 2003. [ 44 ]
Jupiter might have shaped the Solar System on its grand tack. In planetary astronomy, the grand tack hypothesis proposes that Jupiter formed at a distance of 3.5 AU from the Sun, then migrated inward to 1.5 AU, before reversing course due to capturing Saturn in an orbital resonance, eventually halting near its current orbit at 5.2 AU.
All of the spacecraft components and spare parts received a minimum of 2,000 hours of testing. The spacecraft was expected to last for at least five years—long enough to reach Jupiter and perform its mission. [14] Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-34, carrying Galileo into Earth orbit