ORBIT DETERMINATION PERFORMANCE OF THE JUPITER ECLIPSE AVOIDANCE MANEUVER BY THE JUNO SPACECRAFT

In the fall of 2019, the Juno spacecraft (s/c) was on a trajectory that would lead to its complete loss of power and eventual impact with Jupiter. Were nothing to be done, on November 3, 2019 the Juno spacecraft would incur a mission-ending, ∼12-hour solar eclipse due to entering Jupiter’s shadow. However, one month prior, a cleverly designed eclipse avoidance maneuver was successfully performed to reorient the orbital plane, allowing us to “skip over” the shadow cone. This paper will detail the orbit determination (OD) team’s preparation for this critical event, and the subsequent analyses done to understand how well the spacecraft performed the maneuver and where the future of the mission stood.