NASA's Juno Mission 25 Days from Jupiter

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NASA's Juno Mission 25 Days from Jupiter
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 9, 2016

JUNO MISSION STATUS

NASA's Juno mission is now 25 days and 11.1 million miles (17.8 million
kilometers) away from the largest planetary inhabitant in our solar system
-- Jupiter. On the evening of July 4, Juno will fire its main engine for
35 minutes, placing it into a polar orbit around the gas giant. It will
be a daring planetary encounter: Giant Jupiter lies in the harshest radiation
environment known, and Juno has been specially designed to safely navigate
the brand new territory.

We're currently closing the distance between us and Jupiter at about four
miles per second," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator for Juno
from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "But Jupiter's gravity
is tugging at us harder every day and by the time we arrive we'll be accelerated
to 10 times that speed -- more than 40 miles per second (nearly 70 kilometers
per second) -- by the time our rocket engine puts on the brakes to get
us into orbit."

The Juno mission team is using these last weeks to evaluate and re-evaluate
every portion of the Jupiter orbit insertion (JOI) process, finding very
low probability events and running them to ground -- determining which,
if any, need to be addressed. Two scenarios have been identified for further
work. The first is a variation in how Juno would come out of safe mode-a
protective mode if the spacecraft were to encounter an anomaly or unexpected
condition. A second item involves a minor software update.

"We are in the last test and review phases of the JOI sequence as part
of our final preparations for Jupiter orbit insertion," said Rick Nybakken,
project manager of Juno for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California. "Throughout the project, including operations, our review
process has looked for the likely, the unlikely and then the very unlikely.
Now we are looking at extremely unlikely events that orbit insertion could
throw at us."

More information on the Juno mission is available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/juno

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, 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, Denver, built the spacecraft. The California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

News Media Contact
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-393-9011
ag...@jpl.nasa.gov

2016-145