Washington, Oct. 12 (ANI): NASA's Juno spacecraft, which is on its way to Jupiter, resumed full flight operations at 5:12 p.m. ET Friday.
The probe had entered safe mode during its flyby of Earth, which provided the necessary gravity boost to accurately slingshot the probe towards Jupiter.
On Oct. 9, Juno past within 350 miles of the ocean just off the tip of South Africa at 3:21 p.m. EDT (12:21 PDT / 19:21 UTC).
Soon after closest approach, a signal was received by the European Space Agency's 15-meter antenna just north of Perth, Australia, indicating the spacecraft initiated an automated fault-protection action called "safe mode."
Safe mode is a state that the spacecraft may enter if its on-board computer perceives conditions on the spacecraft are not as expected.
Onboard Juno, the safe mode turned off instruments and a few non-critical spacecraft components, and pointed the spacecraft toward the Sun to ensure the solar arrays received power. The spacecraft acted as expected during the transition into and while in safe mode. (ANI)
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