Nasa successfully puts Juno into Jupiter Orbit

In the ancient Roman religion, Jupiter was the God of the Sky and Juno was his wife who could peer through clouds. Nasa just got its Juno spacecraft around the biggest planet in the solar system with a thirty minute insertion maneuver. This maneuver was a one off opportunity after a five year solar power spaceflight, and one of the most difficult things that Nasa has ever done. Juno is in an elliptical pole to pole orbit around Jupiter now, the first time that a spacecraft has been inserted into such an orbit around an outer planet.

Juno is constantly spinning, and has multiple spin modes for different stages of the operation. The spinning spacecraft actually keeps it in a very stable communication lock with earth, with its antennas constantly interfacing with Earth. After Juno was launched from an Atlas V rocket on August 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This was followed by a gravitational slingshot maneuver around the earth, where the spacecraft used Earth’s gravity wells to accelerate towards Jupiter. Specially made solar panels were used for powering the spacecraft the rest of the way. The Rosetta spacecraft by the European Space Agency was the only other solar powered spacecraft in the outer solar system so far.

As Juno approached Jupiter’s poles, it was the fastest spacecraft to attempt insertion into an orbit. Juno was going at 209214 km/h, and had to fire its main engines for 35 minutes. The whole operation was conducted with a 48 minute communication lag with earth. This was the most critical operation in the mission, and the NASA and Lockheed teams pulled it off flawlessly.

Juno will study the planet’s surface, and take high resolution images of the clouds on Jupiter. The spacecraft dives into one of the most intense radiation belts in the solar system, with particles travelling almost at the speed of light. Juno has a special titanium radiation shield to protect it’s components from the intense radiation. Scientific payloads on board include magnetometers, a microwave radiometer and infrared cameras. Juno has on board the Jedi sensor, which stands for Jovian Energetic Particle Detector Instrument, meant to study the energy and distribution of charged particles. The JunoCam is meant just for community participation by amateur astronomers who will use basic earth telescopes to identify interesting spots on Jupiter, vote for it, and then Nasa will use JunoCam to photograph these points of interest.