Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech
A NASA probe en route to distant Jupiter has crossed the halfway point to its target.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft was launched on Aug. 5, 2011, headed for arrival at massive Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
The next milestone in Juno’s nearly five-year journey to Jupiter will occur this October 9. The spacecraft flies past Earth to gain a little extra speed, whipping by our planet within 347 miles (559 kilometers).
Project Manager, Rick Nybakken of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said the Earth flyby will give Juno a kick in the pants, boosting its velocity by 16,330 mph (about 7.3 kilometers per second).
“From there, it’s next stop Jupiter,” Nybakken said in a JPL press statement.
Pole to pole probing
Once in orbit around Jupiter, Juno will circle the planet 33 times, from pole to pole, and use its collection of eight science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover.
The solar powered Juno’s primary goal is to improve our understanding of Jupiter’s formation and evolution. The spacecraft will spend a year investigating the planet’s origins, interior structure, deep atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Juno’s study of Jupiter will help us to understand the history of our own solar system and provide new insight into how planetary systems form and develop in our galaxy and beyond.
NASA’s JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
For more information on this long distance mission, go to:
By Leonard David