Juno spacecraft started its journey five years ago.
AB Wire
NASA’s unmanned Juno robotic probe began circling the Jupiter late Monday and become the first spacecraft to enter the orbit of solar system’s largest planet since NASA’s Galileo mission did so in 1995.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California erupted in cheers as the solar observatory successfully entered its aimed-for orbit around the biggest planet in our cosmic neighborhood at 11.53 pm EDT on July 4, the US National Independence Day.
“Welcome to Jupiter,” said a commentator at mission control. “We are in it,” hollered Scott Bolton, NASA’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Juno, launched five years ago on August 5, 2011 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, has travelled 2.7 billion kilometers since then. It was travelling at a speed of more than 209,200 kilometers per hour when it fired its engines to slow down enough to be captured into Jupiter’s orbit.
The ‘burn’ of Juno’s main engine began on time at 11.18 EDT, decreasing the spacecraft’s velocity by 542 meters per second and allowing Juno to be captured in orbit around Jupiter. Soon after the burn was completed, Juno turned so that the sun’s rays could once again reach Juno’s energy giving solar cells.
“The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when you’re driving a vehicle with 1.7 billion miles on the odometer,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno Project manager from JPL.
“Jupiter orbit insertion was a big step and the most challenging remaining in our mission plan, but there are others that have to occur before we can give the science team the mission they are looking for” he added.
Over the next few months, Juno’s mission and science teams will perform final testing on the spacecraft’s subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection.
Jupiter lies five times farther from the sun than Earth does, and as a result receives 25 times less sunlight than earth gets. To harness that meager supply, Juno sports a total of 18,698 individual solar cells, which are spread among the three 29.5-foot-long panels. With these panels extended, Juno is about the size of a basketball court.
The only challenge Juno faces at Jupiter is gathering enough energy to operate. Jupiter’s magnetic field, which is 20,000 times stronger than that of Earth, accelerates huge swarms of electrons to nearly the speed of light.
The principal goal of Juno is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its suite of nine science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter’s intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planets auroras.
The mission also will let us take a giant step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system.
Social Media Updates:
Success! Engine burn complete. #Juno is now orbiting #Jupiter, poised to unlock the planet's secrets. https://t.co/YFsOJ9YYb5
— NASA (@NASA) July 5, 2016
#ICYMI, our #Juno spacecraft is in Jupiter’s orbit! Confirmation was received at 11:53pm ET: https://t.co/2uqevTkJj4 pic.twitter.com/lUi1D5hlHH
— NASA (@NASA) July 5, 2016
Teamwork❤️! From #Jupiter to Earth: thanks, team for guiding me into orbit. And now… SCIENCE https://t.co/4tR0S3XwyD pic.twitter.com/17Bia2UTkR
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) July 5, 2016