NASA's five-year mission to Jupiter proceeds

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 04:54

Science - Space

US space agency NASA has announced it is "officially moving forward" on Juno, an "extremely energy efficient" mission to put a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet.

Previous missions to Jupiter include the probe released into the gas giant's atmosphere by the Galileo spacecraft in 1995, and the flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft in 2007.

NASA scientists hope the Juno mission will provide information that will answer outstanding questions about the formation of the solar system.

The plan is to launch the Juno spacecraft on an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral in August 2011. Its trajectory will include a flyby of Earth two years later, before the rendezvous with Jupiter in 2016.

The spacecraft is given a 'gravity assist' as it passes Earth, allowing it to reach Jupiter on less fuel than would be needed for a more direct course.

While it is commonplace for spacecraft visiting the inner planets (including satellites in Earth orbit) to use solar power, Juno will be the first to do so at such a large distance from the Sun.

"Jupiter is more than 400 million miles from the sun or five times further than Earth," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute. "Juno is engineered to be extremely energy efficient."

What will Juno do when it reaches Jupiter? See page 2.