JASP - Jool's Atmosphere Surveyor Probe

[PDCWolf]

Following the events of my First mission to Jool and as soon as the phase angles were right, JASP took off the launchpad at KSC.

JASP - Jool's Atmosphere Surveyor Prove - was a one time only probe developed to be destroyed under what our scientist though was below Jool's clouds. The mission objective was to get readings on temperature, gravity and atmospheric pressure at different heights, till the predicted destruction took place.

Given the probe's weight (around 500 kilos) JRO's launcher was used once more and with excellent results.

at T+209:12:56 we began aerobraking and separation operations.

After some minor corrections, JASP separated from the interplanetary stage. JASP opened it's antennas, getting a less aerodynamic profile and falling behind the LV-N stage.

Once reentry heat dropped down, chutes opened in their drogue mode. Here's a pic from one of the probe's cameras.

At this point, our instruments detected our altitude above "something". That gave us the idea to take our readings at certain heights instead of doing it on time intervals as we originally planned. This is our first reading, taken at 50000 meters above the ground.

The second one, took at 25000

Third one at 10000

Fourth reading at 5000

Fifth reading at 2500

After that, the chutes deployed completely, leaving us falling at the worrying speed of 0.8m/s . At this point our scientist started joking saying that "we were going to fully stop in the atmosphere".

We were approaching our supposed "last reading" at 10 meters, here it is:

After that, everyone went crazy because we were going "below the ground". We took our last reading at -25 meters.

Some seconds later, everything blew up. The last readings were "15.75 atmo pressure - 1000 degrees celcius", and thus, operation JASP came to an end.

[Finnerty]

Interesting. I put temp and gravity instruments on all my probes. I plan on having at least one orbiting every planet and moon. Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, Eve, and Gilly I have probes around so far. Long way to go. But it also gives me an good idea of how much fuel it takes to reach each one if I ever get around to landings.

[PDCWolf]

Interesting. I put temp and gravity instruments on all my probes. I plan on having at least one orbiting every planet and moon. Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, Eve, and Gilly I have probes around so far. Long way to go. But it also gives me an good idea of how much fuel it takes to reach each one if I ever get around to landings.

I only put instruments according to the mission, I mean, why would I need the extra drag and weight caused by atmo pressure and temp instruments when going to Gilly for example. In this case I included them all, and it turns out Jool has only 7.something m/s² of gravity, which is less than kerbin.

[skykooler]

I only put instruments according to the mission, I mean, why would I need the extra drag and weight caused by atmo pressure and temp instruments when going to Gilly for example. In this case I included them all, and it turns out Jool has only 7.something m/s² of gravity, which is less than kerbin.

Jool's gravity is so low because it's radius is so big. There's a similar pattern among the gas giants in our own solar system; the gravity on Saturn, for example, is only 108% of Earth's, and the gravity on Uranus is even lower, at 96% of Earth's.

[Moon Goddess]

That's the cool thing about gravity, that makes black holes so fascinating. A black holes gravity is not so intense because of it's mass, it's because it's so so small.