After travelling nearly 2 billion miles in 5 years, Juno entered Jupiter’s orbit. Juno was launched on August 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The solar-powered spacecraft ‘Juno’ is in a polar orbit to study deeply about Jupiter’s composition, magnetic field, gravity field, atmosphere, and magnetosphere.
It’s the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter after the Galileo which orbited from 1995-2003.
Jennifer Delavan (Mission Control Commentator) of Lockheed Martin said “Juno, welcome to Jupiter” excitedly. Other ground controllers at NASA were also excited and cheered Juno with applause on entering the planet’s orbit.
Success! Engine burn complete. #Juno is now orbiting #Jupiter, poised to unlock the planet’s secrets. https://t.co/YFsOJ9YYb5— NASA (@NASA) July 5, 2016
The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 37 times in course of 20 months and is set to come as close as 3,000 feet above Jupiter to capture the closest look ever in that duration of time. Juno performed an orbit insertion burn on July 5 to slow it enough to enter Jupiter’s polar orbit. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California manages the mission and the Lockheed Martin Corporation was responsible for the development and construction of Juno.
Juno weighs 4-ton and is equipped with three 30-foot long solar arrays along with 18,696 individual solar cells to make the most of the solar power that Juno will receive on its Journey.