Jupiter is probably the best place in the solar system to study how the magnetic fields of planets are generated. The Juno spacecraft will make the five-year, 400-million-mile voyage to Jupiter and orbit the planet, collecting data for more than one Earth year.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A NASA probe on a five-year mission to Jupiter fired up its rocket thrusters this week to better aim itself at the largest planet in our solar system.
The Juno spacecraft performed the course adjustment on Wednesday (Feb. 1), marking the first of up to 12 planned maneuvers to stay on track during its 1.7 billion-mile (2.8 billion-kilometer) flight to Jupiter, mission managers said.
NASA launched the $1.1 billion Juno probe toward Jupiter in August 2011 atop an Atlas 5 rocket. The spacecraft has been streaking through space ever since. So far, it has traveled about 279 million miles (449 million km) in the 182 days since liftoff. The probe is expected to arrive at Jupiter in August 2016.
“We had a maneuver planned soon after launch but our Atlas 5 rocket gave us such a good ride we didn’t need to make any trajectory changes,” said Juno project manager Rick Nybakken of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “It is good to get another first under our belt. This burn couldn’t have gone any better.”
Article source: http://www.livescience.com/18322-nasa-jupiter-spacecraft-juno-flight-correction.html