Juno’s trip around Jupiter will be powered by 18,698 individual solar cells on the spacecraft.
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Since launching in 2011, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been cruising toward the biggest planet in the solar system.
The space agency said Monday the engine burn is expected to last about half an hour.
After it was complete, jubilant scientists fronted a press conference, and tore up a “contingency communication strategy” they said they prepared in case things went wrong.
Mission Jupiter! NASA is all over the news again today, with its successful mission to Jupiter, to place the Juno spacecraft in orbit around the planet.
“We’re really excited for Juno’s arrival because it’s going to be the most advanced spacecraft to monitor a giant planet”, Heimpel says. It will circle the Jovian world 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops, providing new answers to ongoing mysteries about the planet’s core, composition and magnetic fields.
A solar-powered spacecraft is circling Jupiter on a mission to map the giant planet from the inside out.
“You have multiple moons going around Jupiter, and each one is going around at a different speed, based on its distance away from the planet”. Scientists have been studying Mars to figure out why the planet lost its water.
Jupiter’s vast gravity also diverts many asteroid and comets from potentially catastrophic collisions with Earth and the rest of the inner solar system.
“We are learning about nature, how Jupiter formed and what that tells us about our history and where we came from”, said Juno lead scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The first mission created to see beneath Jupiter’s clouds, Juno is named after the Roman goddess who was the wife of Jupiter, the god of the sky in ancient mythology.
“Harris and the DSN have been preparing for Jupiter Orbit Insertion for well over a year to ensure the success of this mission”, said Carl D’Alessandro, president, Harris Critical Networks. Bolton said Juno is likely to discover even more.
Nasa also operates a similar simulated data feed, called Eyes on the Solar System, which will provide interactive visualisation.
The risks to the spacecraft are not over.
To enter Jupiter’s orbit, Juno fired its rocket motor, putting it on a long, looping path that takes 53 days to complete.
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Juno’s computers and sensitive science instruments are housed in a 400-pound (180-kg) titanium vault for protection.
