• NASA's Juno Spacecraft in Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter

    From baalke@1:2320/100 to sci.space.news on Tue Jul 5 20:29:30 2016
    From Newsgroup: sci.space.news

    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6558

    NASA's Juno Spacecraft in Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    July 4, 2016

    After an almost five-year journey to the solar system's largest planet,
    NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter's orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on
    Earth at 8:53 pm. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.

    "Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add
    to America's birthday another reason to cheer -- Juno is at Jupiter,"
    said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. "And what is more American than
    a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone before? With
    Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter's massive radiation
    belts to delve deep into not only the planet's interior, but into how
    Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved."

    Confirmation of a successful orbit insertion was received from Juno tracking data monitored at the navigation facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, as well as at the Lockheed Martin Juno operations center in Denver. The telemetry and tracking data were received
    by NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Goldstone, California, and Canberra, Australia.

    "This is the one time I don't mind being stuck in a windowless room on
    the night of the Fourth of July," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator
    of Juno from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "The mission
    team did great. The spacecraft did great. We are looking great. It's a
    great day."

    Preplanned events leading up to the orbital insertion engine burn included changing the spacecraft's attitude to point the main engine in the desired direction and then increasing the spacecraft's rotation rate from 2 to
    5 revolutions per minute (RPM) to help stabilize it..

    The burn of Juno's 645-Newton Leros-1b main engine began on time at 8:18
    p.m. PDT (11:18 p.m. EDT), decreasing the spacecraft's velocity by 1,212
    mph (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 the 18,698 individual solar cells
    that give Juno its energy.

    "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 members
    the mission they are looking for."

    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.

    "Our official science collection phase begins in October, but we've figured out a way to collect data a lot earlier than that," said Bolton. "Which
    when you're talking about the single biggest planetary body in the solar system is a really good thing. There is a lot to see and do here."

    Juno's principal goal 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 planet's 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. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter also can provide critical knowledge
    for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other
    stars.

    The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air
    Force Station in Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. Juno
    is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
    The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

    More information on the Juno mission is available at:

    http://www.nasa.gov/juno

    Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

    http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

    http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno


    News Media Contact

    DC Agle
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
    818-393-9011
    agle@jpl.nasa.gov

    Dwayne C. Brown
    NASA Headquarters, Washington
    202-358-1726.
    dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

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