Juno probe sets sail for Jupiter
Source: Agencies |
August 7, 2011, Sunday
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AN unmanned rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday, sending a robotic scout on its way to Jupiter to gather details about how the solar system formed.
The Atlas 5 rocket carrying NASA's Juno spacecraft lifted off at 12:25pm (local time), the first step in a five-year, 716-million kilometer odyssey to the largest planet in the solar system.
Launch was delayed almost an hour while United Launch Alliance fixed a technical problem with ground support equipment. The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture builds and flies Atlas and Delta rockets for NASA, as well as the military and commercial customers.
"Next stop is Jupiter," an elated Scott Bolton, head of the Juno science team, said after launch. "I couldn't be happier. This is sort of like a dream come true."
Upon arrival in July 2016, Juno is to spend a year in an unprecedented polar orbit around the giant planet, measuring its water content, mapping its magnetic fields and searching for signs of a solid core.
With more than twice the mass than all its sibling planets combined, Jupiter is believed to hold a key piece to the puzzle of how the planets formed some 4.65 billion years ago from the gas and dust left over after the birth of the sun.
"We're really looking for the recipe for planet formation," said Bolton, who is with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
"We're going after the ingredients of Jupiter by getting the water abundance as well as very precise measurements of the gravity field that will help us understand whether there's a core of heavy elements or a core of rocks in the middle of Jupiter."
The measurements will help scientists sort through theories about what the early solar system looked like and how Jupiter, believed to be the first planet to form, was created.
The Juno mission is the second in NASA's lower-cost New Frontiers program.
The Atlas 5 rocket carrying NASA's Juno spacecraft lifted off at 12:25pm (local time), the first step in a five-year, 716-million kilometer odyssey to the largest planet in the solar system.
Launch was delayed almost an hour while United Launch Alliance fixed a technical problem with ground support equipment. The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture builds and flies Atlas and Delta rockets for NASA, as well as the military and commercial customers.
"Next stop is Jupiter," an elated Scott Bolton, head of the Juno science team, said after launch. "I couldn't be happier. This is sort of like a dream come true."
Upon arrival in July 2016, Juno is to spend a year in an unprecedented polar orbit around the giant planet, measuring its water content, mapping its magnetic fields and searching for signs of a solid core.
With more than twice the mass than all its sibling planets combined, Jupiter is believed to hold a key piece to the puzzle of how the planets formed some 4.65 billion years ago from the gas and dust left over after the birth of the sun.
"We're really looking for the recipe for planet formation," said Bolton, who is with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
"We're going after the ingredients of Jupiter by getting the water abundance as well as very precise measurements of the gravity field that will help us understand whether there's a core of heavy elements or a core of rocks in the middle of Jupiter."
The measurements will help scientists sort through theories about what the early solar system looked like and how Jupiter, believed to be the first planet to form, was created.
The Juno mission is the second in NASA's lower-cost New Frontiers program.
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