Breaking! Juno probe successfully enters Jupiter's orbit after 'amazing' mission

Well, what a day. What an achievement.

After a five year journey from Earth, Juno the solar-powered spacecraft squeezed through a narrow band, skimming Jupiter’s surface, avoiding the worst of both its radiation belt and its dangerous dust rings.

It fired its main engine, slowing its velocity, and allowing it to get captured into Jupiter’s hefty orbit.

After it was complete, jubilant scientists fronted a press conference, and tore up a “contingency communication strategy” they said they prepared in case things went wrong.

“To know we can go to bed tonight not worrying about what is going to happen tomorrow, is just amazing,” said Diane Brown, a project manager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Scott Bolton, principle investigator of the Juno mission told his colleagues: “You’re the best team ever! We just did the hardest thing Nasa has ever done.”

Now the spacecraft will orbit the planet once every 53 days until October 14, when it will shift to a tighter 14-day orbit. And after about 20 months of learning everything it can about Jupiter’s interior and its atmosphere, it will eventually succumb to the harsh environment and plunge into the planet’s crushing centre.

Breaking! Juno probe successfully enters Jupiter's orbit after 'amazing' mission

And now the anxious wait commences for what would be the most mind boggling images of never before seen Jupiter's upper atmosphere!


Tearing up the “contingency communication strategy” prepared in case things went wrong. It was a bulls eye!

Here's the gen on Juno.......


Courtesy: NASA

“Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America’s birthday another reason to cheer -- Juno is at Jupiter,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden. “And what is more American than a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone before? With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter’s massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planet’s interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved.”

Congrats to all those who made this mission a roaring success!

Good to know!
Congrats to the team.

Thanks for posting

"And after about 20 months of learning everything it can about Jupiter’s interior and its atmosphere, it will eventually succumb to the harsh environment and plunge into the planet’s crushing centre."

I hope JUNO can survive just a little bit, and receive sensor and video information as it plunges.
Not likely as its extremely thick with gas and the gravity. I can dream, and I would like to know what free fall speed is on jupiter.

Thanks for posting 👍

Edit: taken from JUNO 15 hours ago.😊

Double post😄

“You’re the best team ever! We just did the hardest thing Nasa has ever done.”

That we know about.


This is good news. I hope we get to learn a lot more about Jupiter.
Looking forward to all the incoming info.

Wonderful technological feat! America is AWESOME!!! Why so few ATS Juno threads (if any at all?) over the past 5 years?

As amazing as this is,doesn't it seem a bit strange that all sensor & video info was shut down as the probe reached it's destination?

a reply to: mopargtx

My guess is it's probably to protect the components from the radiation and debris as it enters orbit.

I've never been accused of being a rocket scientist though.

Juno's scientific payload includes:

A gravity/radio science system (Gravity Science)
A six-wavelength microwave radiometer for atmospheric sounding and composition (MWR)
A vector magnetometer (MAG)
Plasma and energetic particle detectors (JADE and JEDI)
A radio/plasma wave experiment (Waves)
An ultraviolet imager/spectrometer (UVS)
An infrared imager/spectrometer (JIRAM)

The spacecraft also carries a color camera, called JunoCam, to provide us with the first detailed glimpse of Jupiter's poles.

Juno left the Earth atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on Aug. 5, 2011, beginning its journey to Jupiter atop the most powerful Atlas variant with five side-mounted boosters. Liftoff occurred at 12:25 p.m. EDT (1625 GMT) from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Here's the video....

spaceflightnow.com...

a reply to: carewemust

Great Britain built the rocket engine that got it into orbit!!
Most of these are built with an international effort of some shape or form.
Great job to all that participated in this amazing feat, looking forward to what they find.

originally posted by: carewemust
Wonderful technological feat! America is AWESOME!!! Why so few ATS Juno threads (if any at all?) over the past 5 years?

It has a British engine though

So go USA/UK!

So, at what point is some mouth-breathing dimwit going to completely ignore the fact that we just put a probe in orbit of Jupiter, and make accusations of some kind of bigotry?

"Due to telecommunications constraints, Juno will only be able to return about 40 megabytes of camera data during each 11-day orbital period"

Peeved that we will only get to see low resolution pictures. You'd think they would have allowed greater multichannel bandwidth to allow full 4K video for the entire encounter. NASA priority should be to enthral the masses, so they demand more.

originally posted by: ShadowLink
a reply to: mopargtx

My guess is it's probably to protect the components from the radiation and debris as it enters orbit.

I've never been accused of being a rocket scientist though.

I'm not a rocket scientist, either, but this is what I heard during the telecast last night:

During its mission, JUNO will try to stay away from the most intense radiation field of Jupiter (although will still need to endure some relatively intense radiation). However, the path that it will take to orbital insertion takes it through one of the most intense portions of the field, so they turned off the instruments in order to protect them from potential damage.

originally posted by: glend
"Due to telecommunications constraints, Juno will only be able to return about 40 megabytes of camera data during each 11-day orbital period"

Peeved that we will only get to see low resolution pictures. You'd think they would have allowed greater multichannel bandwidth to allow full 4K video for the entire encounter. NASA priority should be to enthral the masses, so they demand more.

A 602 Million mile long fiber optic cable should do the trick.

a reply to: OrionHunterX

Space industry FTW!

I love that we can fire a science platform into space with a rocket, aim it at a planet with huge tech-killing radiation belts, 67 moons, over 365 million miles away, and bullseye the target with nothing more than a series of computer commands.
Using conventional technology!

Just imagine what we'll be capable of once we get efficient deep learning and neural networks in space.

originally posted by: SpongeBeard
a reply to: OrionHunterX

Space industry FTW!

I love that we can fire a science platform into space with a rocket, aim it at a planet with huge tech-killing radiation belts, 67 moons, over 365 million miles away, and bullseye the target with nothing more than a series of computer commands.
Using conventional technology!

Just imagine what we'll be capable of once we get efficient deep learning and neural networks in space.

And then remember, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon with a 'computer' that had memory less than today's ordinary hand-held calculators! Your smartphone is a thousand times more powerful!!

It's amazing how naive people really are.

originally posted by: Bigburgh

Edit: taken from JUNO 15 hours ago.😊

Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how they build these unbelievably expensive probes and they've got the perfect opportunity to put some really awesome photographic gear on there and they get photos like this one? That looks about the way Jupiter used to look through my 4.5 inch reflector back in the 90s. From Earth.