NASA announced that Juno will reach Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, on July 4, 2016. The spacecraft is now still 51 million miles away from reaching its goal.
NASA's press release states that on February 3rd the solar-powered Juno spacecraft adjusted successfully its trajectory to Jupiter, helping it to set its course and arrive to the planet within five months. In order to correct its course, Juno carried out an engine burn procedure. This maneuver sent the spacecraft on a straight path towards Jupiter. In order to perform the procedure that changed its speed by roughly 0.7 miles per hour, the space probe burned 1.3 pounds of fuel.
The Juno spacecraft was launched in the year 2011 and it will reach Jupiter in July 2016. The space probe is designed to study the giant planet and it will set its trajectory an elliptical, polar orbit.
Scott Bolton is Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. According to Bolton, cited by Pulse Headlines, this is just the first of two planned adjustments in Juno's trajectory. The space probe's orbit will fine tune around the sun, preparing for reaching Jupiter on July 4th at 8:18 p.m. The second of these adjustments of Juno's trajectory is planned to take place on May 31th.
The Juno spacecraft has the purpose to map Jupiter's magnetic and gravitational fields. Over the course of its mission, Juno will orbit the planet a total of 33 times and once every two weeks it will travel within 3,100 miles of the Jupiter's atmosphere.
The space probe will help researchers understand how Jupiter formed and evolved. They will also be able to study how the gas giant planet has influenced solar system's growth and evolution.
Juno is a solar-powered spacecraft equipped with three 30-foot-long solar panels holding together a total of 18,698 individual solar cells. The space probe costs around $1.1 billion. Last month Juno broke the record for the farthest-traveling solar powered spacecraft in the history of space exploration.
