NASA puts the twin Janus probes in the attic – the astronauts

Artist’s impression of Janus Investigations. Credits: NASA

Just over a year ago, NASA announced that its Psyche probe would not be launched during its scheduled August launch window. The reason was the late delivery of the flight program and test system, which thus prevented the agency’s technicians from performing the necessary checks on the probe. Thus, Psyche has seen takeoff postponed to the following year, specifically from October 10, 2023, with a flight plan slightly modified to account for the backlog.

If the mission proceeds almost normally for Psyche, the same cannot be said for its traveling companions, two twin probes named Janus, which with the new trajectory cannot reach their science goals, two binary asteroid systems. The original plan expected the Janus A and Janus B to launch after a flyby of Earth in August 2025, with a destination about a year later: the system. 1991VH In March 2026 and 1996 FG3 in April 2026. Mission operations would have ended at the end of May of the same year.

Photometric, spectroscopic and radar analyzes were carried out in the past years and made it possible to determine the dimensions of the individual components: 1640 μm in diameter for the main component and 515 μm in diameter for the 1996 FG3 and 1120 μm long and 450 μm for the 1991 VH.

The purpose of the mission was to study them to identify and understand the processes behind the formation of binary systems themselves, and to allow direct validation of evolutionary models. The range of scientific tools available for the investigations is not particularly large: three instruments are all derived from OSIRIS-REx or other missions:

• Visual renderer: 2.2 µm CMOS sensor, 2592 x 1944 pixels, observable range 420-680 nm and electronic shutter;
• Infrared viewer: long wave infrared sensor (8-12 μm) of 640 x 480 pixels of 17 μm;
• DVR: Data storage and image processing system.

The low number of tools is a direct result of the software from which Janus was born, SIMPLEx. abbreviation Innovative mini missions for PLAnetary exploration, is NASA’s program for the design, construction, and management of low-cost (for Janus 55 million overall, excluding launch) and high-technology probes, to be launched with other payloads that are much more important from an economic and scientific point of view. Despite this, the data from Janus has been of fundamental importance to the study of binary asteroid systems because the only systems available come from observations from Earth and do not have a high resolution.

breath delay, along with Uncertainty about funding for the next few yearsNASA declined to comment, although other potential destinations to be reached were also being evaluated. Over the next few months, the works already funded will be completed, after which decommissioning operations will begin, pending potential future funding that will allow their use.

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