NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully executed a maneuver to adjust its flight path today, refining its trajectory to set the stage for Juno’s arrival at Jupiter five months and a day from now.
“This is the first of two trajectory adjustments that fine tune Juno’s orbit around the sun, perfecting our rendezvous with Jupiter on July 4th at 8:18 p.m. PDT.”
–Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the
Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
Launching from Earth in 2011, the Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter in 2016 to study the giant planet from an elliptical, polar orbit. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Juno was launched on Aug. 5, 2011. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 33 times, skimming to within 3,100 miles above the planet’s cloud tops every 14 days. During the flybys, the probe will scan beneath the cloud cover and study its aurorae to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
NASA’s JPL in Pasadena manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. It is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, built the craft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about Juno visit these sites:
J. C. Conway 