Juno Visits Jupiter

On July 4, NASA’s Juno spacecraft, about the size of a bus, entered orbit (about 3100 miles from the surface) around the gas giant Jupiter, which is 1.76 billion miles from Earth. The goal of the mission is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter, look for a solid planetary core, map its magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe auroras.

The Juno spacecraft was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Dr. Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.