[curiousuburb]

JUNO countdown to launch... blast off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 4.34pm BST (11.34am local time)... about 3 and change hours from now

2013 Earth slingshot

2016 (July) Jupiter Arrival

20?? Monolith Discovery ??

After 33 orbits... Jupiter Impact

Cargo includes:

The plaque, which was provided by the Italian Space Agency, measures 2.8 by 2 inches (71 by 51 millimeters), is made of flight-grade aluminum and weighs six grams (0.2 ounces). It was bonded to Juno's propulsion bay with a spacecraft-grade epoxy. The graphic on the plaque depicts a self-portrait of Galileo. It also includes -- in Galileo's own hand -- a passage he made in 1610 of observations of Jupiter, archived in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence.

Galileo's text included on the plaque reads as follows: “On the 11th it was in this formation -- and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.”


In Greek and Roman mythology, Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. From Mount Olympus, Juno was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature. Juno holds a magnifying glass to signify her search for the truth, while her husband holds a lightning bolt. The third LEGO crew member is Galileo Galilei, who made several important discoveries about Jupiter, including the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honor). Of course, the miniature Galileo has his telescope with him on the journey.

Guardian.co.uk says: Juno space probe prepares for a suicide mission to Jupiter The spacecraft Juno is due to launch on Friday on a five-year mission to investigate Jupiter before plunging into the gas giant A spacecraft destined to become the fastest manmade object in history is set for launch on Friday on a mission that will end in a high-speed crash into the largest planet in the solar system. Nasa's $1bn Juno satellite is bound for Jupiter on a mission to peer through the clouds of the Jovian atmosphere and deep into the planet's interior. The 3.5-tonne probe is due to blast off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 4.34pm BST (11.34am local time) on a 2,800 million kilometre voyage that will take it far out into the solar system before looping back around the Earth in a slingshot manoeuvre that will hurl the spacecraft towards its target. Before Juno arrives at its destination, rocket motors will fire up and set the satellite spinning like a three-bladed propeller so that each of its scientific instruments can get a regular and clear view of the planet. The five-year journey will bring Juno in over the north pole of Jupiter to begin the first of 33 orbits at speeds of up to 160,000kph. To minimise damage from Jupiter's intense radiation fields, the spacecraft will follow a highly elliptical orbit that goes far out into space before returning low over the north and south poles. The spinning satellite will photograph Jupiter's spectacular aurora and map its intense magnetic and gravitational fields for a year in a bid to understand the planet's formation and the inner workings that make it one of the most extraordinary bodies in the solar system. "Juno will help us understand how the solar system formed, and how all the planets formed, from the solar nebula some 4.5bn years ago," said Jack Connerney, deputy principal investigator on the Juno mission at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland. "After the formation of the sun, the vast majority of mass left over in the solar system resides in Jupiter. The planet is so massive that none of the material that was originally there could escape its gravity, so Jupiter is effectively a sample of the primitive solar nebula that all the planets formed from." A major question Juno will seek to answer is the nature of the dynamo that generates Jupiter's powerful magnetic field, which is 20,000 times stronger than that of the Earth. On our home planet, the magnetic field is produced by a spinning core of molten iron. "Jupiter's magnetic field may be generated by the layer of liquid metallic hydrogen in the planet's interior, but another school of thought says it may be generated from a layer of molecular hydrogen above that. With a good map of the magnetic field, we should be able to tell which it is," Connerney told the Guardian. Other instruments aboard Juno will compile detailed maps of Jupiter's gravitational field to reveal how heavier elements are distributed throughout the planet, and confirm whether or not it has a sold rocky core. Stowed away on the spacecraft will be a plaque dedicated to Galileo Galilei, who discovered moons in orbit around Jupiter in 1610, and three Lego figures – of Galileo, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife, Juno. The electronics aboard Juno are encased in a titanium vault designed to protect components from high levels of radiation, but even with this shielding, the spacecraft is expected to sustain serious damage after a year in Jupiter's orbit. Any loss of control of Juno could leave the spacecraft in danger of crashing into Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, where future missions may look for signs of extraterrestrial life, so Nasa controllers have developed a final act for the mission. "You hear of Nasa missions that go on and on, but to be sure we don't contaminate the surface of Europa, we are going to send Juno crashing into Jupiter," Connerney said. "I think we will communicate with Juno until the last moment." ... continues ...

Official NASA homepage is here

Mission site (with groovy Flash intro) here

Go JUNO!