NASA's Juno Spacecraft in Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter

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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
ag...@jpl.nasa.gov

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

2016-176