NASA’s Spacecraft Juno Creates History, Enters Jupiter’s Orbit

Washington DC: On Monday, NASA scientists confirmed that Juno a football-field-sized spacecraft designed to unlock some of the secrets of our solar system, successfully entered an orbit around Jupiter, the largest, oldest planet in our solar system, and one with some of the most powerful radiation scientists have ever seen.

Juno completed a 35-minute engine burn that slowed the spacecraft so Jupiter’s gravitational pull could sweep it into an optimal orbit. After traveling billions of miles, Juno hurtled into an area of space just a few miles wide, aiming to hit that target within the span of a few seconds.

The Juno satellite, which left Earth five years ago, had to fire a rocket engine to slow its approach to the planet and get caught by its gravity. A sequence of tones transmitted from the spacecraft confirmed the braking manoeuvre had gone as planned.

Receipt of the radio messages prompted wild cheering at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Scientists plan to use the spacecraft to sense the planet's deep interior. They think the structure and the chemistry of its insides hold clues to how this giant world formed some four-and-a-half-billion years ago.

While the radiation dangers have not gone away, the probe should now be able to prepare its instruments to start sensing what lies beneath Jupiter’s opaque clouds. Tuesday’s orbit insertion has put Juno in a large ellipse around the planet that takes just over 53 days to complete.

A second burn of the rocket engine in mid-October will tighten this orbit to just 14 days. It is then that the science can really start. This will involve repeat passes just a few thousand kilometres above the cloudtops.