"We had a maneuver planned soon after launch but our Atlas V rocket gave us such a good ride we didn't need to make any trajectory changes," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from 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."

The trajectory correction maneuver, which adjusts the spacecraft's flight path, began at 10:10 a.m. PST (1:10 p.m. EST) on Feb. 1. The Juno spacecraft's thrusters fired for 25 minutes, consumed about 6.9 pounds (3.11 kilograms) of fuel and changed the spacecraft's speed by 3.9 feet, or 1.2 meters, per second.

The next big maneuver for Juno will occur in late August of 2012 when Juno executes its first of two deep space maneuvers to set the stage for its Earth flyby - and gravity assist - on its way to Jupiter.

Launched on Aug. 5, 2011, Juno is 182 days and 279 million miles (449 million kilometers) into its five-year, 1,740-million-mile (2,800-million-kilometer) journey to Jupiter.

Once in orbit, the spacecraft will orbit the planet's poles 33 times and use its collection of eight science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant's obscuring cloud cover to learn more about Jupiter's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.

Juno's name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife, the goddess Juno, was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Laurel, Maryland (SPX) Nov 21, 2011 - In a finding of significance in the search for life beyond Earth, scientists have discovered what appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa - which could represent a new potential habitat for life.

Many more such lakes exist throughout the shallow regions of Europa's shell, the researchers predict in an online article in the journal Nature.

Further increasing the potential for life, many of these lakes are covered by floating ice shelves that seem to be collapsing, providing a mechanism for transferring nutrients and energy between the surface and a vast ocean already thought to exist below the thick ice shell.

"The potential for exchange of material between the surface and subsurface is a big key for astrobiology," says Wes Patterson, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and a co-author of the study.

"Europa's subsurface harbors much of what we believe is necessary for life but chemical nutrients found at the surface are likely vital for driving biology."

"One opinion in the scientific community has been, 'If the ice shell is thick, that's bad for biology - that it might mean the surface isn't communicating with the underlying ocean," adds Britney Schmidt, the paper's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics.

"Now we see evidence that it's a thick ice shell that can mix vigorously, and new evidence for giant shallow lakes. That could make Europa and its ocean more habitable."

The scientists focused on Galileo spacecraft images of two roughly circular, bumpy features on Europa's surface called chaos terrains. Based on similar processes seen here on Earth - on ice shelves and under glaciers overlaying volcanoes - they developed a four-step model to explain how the features form on Europa.

It resolves several conflicting observations, some of which seemed to suggest that the ice shell is thick and others that it is thin.

While one of the chaos terrains appears to be fully formed, the other might still be forming - an indication that Europa's surface is still geologically active.

"For quite some time, Europa geologists have been struggling figure out what these features are and how they form," says APL's Louise Prockter, a senior planetary scientist who has conducted numerous studies of Europa. "This is the first time that anyone has come up with an end-to-end model that explains what we see on the surface."

The scientists have good reason to believe their model is correct, based on observations of Europa from the Galileo spacecraft and of Earth. Still, because the inferred lakes are several kilometers below the surface, the only true confirmation of their presence would come from a future spacecraft mission designed to probe the ice shell.

Such a mission was rated as one of the highest priority flagship missions by the National Research Council's recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey and is currently being studied by NASA.

"If we're ever to send a landed mission to Europa, these areas would be great places to study," Prockter says.

The paper, "Active formation of 'chaos terrain' over shallow subsurface water on Europa," will appear as an advance online publication of Nature on Nov. 16. With Schmidt and Patterson, authors on the paper include Don Blankenship, senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics, and Paul Schenk, planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 17, 2011 - Data from a NASA planetary mission have provided scientists evidence of what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

The data suggest there is significant exchange between Europa's icy shell and the ocean beneath. This information could bolster arguments that Europa's global subsurface ocean represents a potential habitat for life elsewhere in our solar system. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature.

"The data open up some compelling possibilities," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's Astrobiology Program at agency headquarters in Washington.

"However, scientists worldwide will want to take a close look at this analysis and review the data before we can fully appreciate the implication of these results."

NASA's Galileo spacecraft, launched by the space shuttle Atlantis in 1989 to Jupiter, produced numerous discoveries and provided scientists decades of data to analyze. Galileo studied Jupiter, which is the most massive planet in our solar system, and some of its many moons.

One of the most significant discoveries was the inference of a global saltwater ocean below the surface of Europa. This ocean is deep enough to cover the whole surface of Europa and contains more liquid water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

However, being far from the sun, the ocean surface is completely frozen. Most scientists think this ice crust is tens of miles thick.

"One opinion in the scientific community has been if the ice shell is thick, that's bad for biology. That might mean the surface isn't communicating with the underlying ocean," said Britney Schmidt, lead author of the paper and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin.

"Now, we see evidence that it's a thick ice shell that can mix vigorously and new evidence for giant shallow lakes. That could make Europa and its ocean more habitable."

Schmidt and her team focused on Galileo images of two roughly circular, bumpy features on Europa's surface called chaos terrains. Based on similar processes seen on Earth - on ice shelves and under glaciers overlying volcanoes - they developed a four-step model to explain how the features form.

The model resolves several conflicting observations. Some seemed to suggest the ice shell is thick. Others suggest it is thin.

This recent analysis shows the chaos features on Europa's surface may be formed by mechanisms that involve significant exchange between the icy shell and the underlying lake.

This provides a mechanism or model for transferring nutrients and energy between the surface and the vast global ocean already inferred to exist below the thick ice shell. This is thought to increase the potential for life there.

The study authors have good reason to believe their model is correct, based on observations of Europa from Galileo and of Earth. Still, because the inferred lakes are several miles below the surface, the only true confirmation of their presence would come from a future spacecraft mission designed to probe the ice shell.

Such a mission was rated as the second highest priority flagship mission by the National Research Council's recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey and is being studied by NASA.

"This new understanding of processes on Europa would not have been possible without the foundation of the last 20 years of observations over Earth's ice sheets and floating ice shelves," said Don Blankenship, a co-author and senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics, where he leads airborne radar studies of the planet's ice sheets.

Galileo was the first spacecraft to directly measure Jupiter's atmosphere with a probe and conduct long-term observations of the Jovian system. The probe was the first to fly by an asteroid and discover the moon of an asteroid.

NASA extended the mission three times to take advantage of Galileo's unique science capabilities, and the spacecraft was put on a collision course into Jupiter's atmosphere in September 2003 to eliminate any chance of impacting Europa.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Huntsville AL (SPX) Aug 10, 2011 - Last Friday, August 5th, NASA's Juno spacecraft blasted off on a 5-year voyage to a freakish world: planet Jupiter. Jupiter has a long list of oddities. For one thing, it's enormous, containing 70% of our solar system's planetary material, yet it is not like the rocky world beneath our feet. Jupiter is so gassy, it seems more like a star.

Jupiter's atmosphere brews hurricanes twice as wide as Earth itself, monsters that generate 400 mph winds and lightning 100 times brighter than terrestrial bolts. The giant planet also emits a brand of radiation lethal to unprotected humans.

Jupiter's strangest feature, however, may be a 25,000 mile deep soup of exotic fluid sloshing around its interior. It's called liquid metallic hydrogen.

"Here on Earth, hydrogen is a colorless, transparent gas," says Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton. "But in the core of Jupiter, hydrogen transforms into something bizarre."

Jupiter is 90% hydrogen1, with 10% helium and a sprinkle of all the other elements. In the gas giant's outer layers, hydrogen is a gas just like on Earth.

As you go deeper, intense atmospheric pressure gradually turns the gas into a dense fluid.2 Eventually the pressure becomes so great that it squeezes the electrons out of the hydrogen atoms and the fluid starts to conduct like a metal.

What's this fluid like?

"Liquid metallic hydrogen has low viscosity, like water, and it's a good electrical and thermal conductor," says Caltech's David Stevenson, an expert in planet formation, evolution, and structure.

"Like a mirror, it reflects light, so if you were immersed in it [here's hoping you never are], you wouldn't be able to see anything."

Here on Earth, liquid metallic hydrogen has been made in shock wave experiments, but since it doesn't stay in that form it has only been made in tiny quantities for very short periods of time. If researchers are right, Jupiter's core may be filled with oceans of the stuff.

There's so much LMH inside Jupiter that it transforms the planet into an enormous generator. "A deep layer of liquid metallic hydrogen and Jupiter's rapid rotation (about 10 hours) create a magnetic field 450 million miles long - the biggest entity in the solar system," says Bolton. Jupiter's magnetosphere can produce up to 10 million amps of electric current, with auroras that light up Jupiter's poles more brightly than any other planet.

Although scientists are fairly sure that liquid metallic hydrogen exists inside Jupiter, they don't know exactly how the big planet's interior is structured. For instance, where does the hydrogen turn into a conductor? Does Jupiter have a core of heavy elements inside?

Juno's mission is to answer those key questions.

"By mapping Jupiter's magnetic field, gravity field, and atmospheric composition, Juno will tell us a great deal about the make-up of Jupiter's interior."

It's important to understand this behemoth because it wielded a lot of influence in the solar system's formation. After the sun took shape out of the solar nebula, Jupiter formed from the majority of leftover material. The state and composition of the material remaining just after the sun formed are preserved in Jupiter.

"It holds the heirloom recipe that made our solar system's first planets," says Bolton. "And we want it."

With last Friday's launch, "Jupiter becomes our lab, Juno our instrument, to unlock the secrets of gas giants," he says. And what Juno discovers could be very freakish, indeed.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Laurel MD (SPX) Aug 08, 2011 - A Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) instrument that will delve into the dynamics of the solar system's largest planetary magnetic field was launched Friday aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft.

The Jupiter Energetic-particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) will measure energetic particles that flow through and are trapped within Jupiter's space environment, called a "magnetosphere," and study how those particles interact with Jupiter's swirling atmosphere.

That interaction generates Jupiter's bright northern and southern lights, called aurora, the most powerful in the solar system. JEDI findings will contribute to Juno's overall mission to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

"Because the processes operating within Jupiter's space environment are so powerful, we must study the planet to make the connection between such Earth-space phenomena as auroras, radiation belts and magnetic field dynamics, and similar astrophysical processes elsewhere in the universe," says Barry Mauk, JEDI lead investigator at APL.

Juno, which launched at 12:15 p.m. EDT aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., will reach Jupiter in 2016 and circle over the planet's poles for a year. One of nine instrument packages on Juno, JEDI consists of three small shoebox-sized, fast-processing electronic detectors positioned to provide a continuous 360-degree sampling view of the space around Juno.

The sensors will work with other Juno magnetospheric instruments to investigate Jupiter's polar space environment. Scientists are looking for how such a strong magnetic field, thought to be generated deep within the pressurized hydrogen interior of Jupiter, combines with other unique elements of Jupiter's extended magnetosphere to spark the auroras.

"JEDI's sensors will be trained on the higher-energy particles that help to generate Jupiter's aurora, that heat and ionize Jupiter's upper atmosphere, and that offer clues to the structure of Jupiter's near-planet space environment," Mauk says.

"We really want to know what happens in the aurora that causes these particles to accelerate to such high energies, and Juno will be the first spacecraft to fly within the region where this acceleration actually takes place."

APL has built 64 spacecraft and approximately 200 space instruments over the past five decades, including other Jupiter-observing particle instruments. The Low-Energy Charged Particle Detector on Voyager 1 was key to the discovery of charged particles around the giant planet; measurements from the Energetic Particle Detector on the Galileo spacecraft were critical to determining many of the fundamental processes operating within Jupiter's magnetosphere.

The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) instrument, flying past Jupiter on the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft, gathered data indicating that the dynamics of Jupiter's magnetosphere, driven by the large amounts of volcanic material from its moon Io and by coupling to Jupiter's rapid spin, extend millions of miles away from Jupiter within the comet-like tail of the planet's magnetosphere.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Cape Canaveral AFS FL (SPX) Aug 08, 2011 - The U.S. Air Force's 45th Space Wing provided flawless Eastern Range support for the successful launch of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA's Juno spacecraft Friday. The launch occurred at Friday Aug 5 at 12:25 p.m. (EDT) from Space Launch Complex 41.

A combined team of military, government civilians and contractors from across the 45th Space Wing provided vital support to the Juno launch, including weather forecasts, launch and range operations, safety and public affairs.

The wing also provided its vast network of radar, telemetry, optical and communications instrumentation to facilitate a safe launch on the Eastern Range. Built by Lockheed Martin, Juno will investigate Jupiter's formation, evolution and structure from an elliptical orbit.

The Atlas V rocket flew in the 551 vehicle configuration with a five-meter fairing, five solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.

"As always, the 45th Space Wing is pleased to have supported NASA on another successful and safe launch," said Brig. Gen. Ed Wilson, commander, 45th Space Wing.

Aerojet Solid Rocket Boosters Help Launch Juno Mission
Sacramento CA - Aerojet played a key role in the successful launch of United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying NASA's Juno spacecraft on a mission toward Jupiter.

Launching in a 551 configuration, Aerojet provided 1.9 million lbs. of liftoff thrust from five solid rocket boosters (SRBs), eight retro-rockets for the Centaur separation from the Atlas common core booster, 12 reaction control thrusters for the Centaur upper stage as well as 12 monopropellant hydrazine Rocket Engine Assemblies (REAs) fixed to the Juno spacecraft.

Aerojet's SRBs on the Atlas V vehicle are 67-feet long and provide a liftoff thrust of 380,000 lbs. each. Aerojet SRBs have flown in previous vehicle configurations using one, two, three and five boosters. This was the 13th successful Atlas V launch with Aerojet SRBs.

Eight Aerojet retro rockets assisted with the Atlas Centaur separation from the launch vehicle. In addition, 12 monopropellant hydrazine REAs will provide attitude control for the Juno spacecraft throughout its journey and insertion into Jupiter's orbit slated for July 2016.

Twelve Aerojet monopropellant (hydrazine) thrusters on the Atlas V Centaur upper stage provided roll, pitch and yaw control as well as settling burns for the upper stage main engine. All Atlas launches since the late 1980s have included Aerojet monopropellant reaction control thrusters on the Centaur upper stage.

The objective of NASA's Jupiter bound mission is to create an understanding of the formation, evolution and structure of Jupiter. Juno will arrive at Jupiter in 2016 for a one-year mission comprising 33 orbits. It will carry a color camera and return the first-ever images of Jupiter's poles. This launch marks NASA's second spacecraft designed under the New Frontiers Program.

"The successful launch of the Juno spacecraft is a tremendous achievement for the nation and Aerojet is proud of our key role in both the launch and space vehicles," said Vice President of Space and Launch Systems, Julie Van Kleeck. "The success of these propulsion systems continues our tradition of 100 percent mission success for NASA's space and planetary missions."

Aerojet is under contract with ULA for the SRBs and REAs for the Atlas V program. The company developed, produced and tested the SRBs in California, using technology derived from its extensive experience producing solid rocket motors for Peacekeeper and Small ICBM missile systems.

Aerojet's Redmond, Wash. team manufactured the Centaur upper stage reaction control thrusters for ULA and the monopropellant hydrazine REAs under contract from Lockheed Martin for the Juno spacecraft.

Rocketdyne Engine Powers Juno Aloft
Canoga Park, CA - Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne demonstrated its continued support of NASA by successfully boosting the Juno spacecraft on its mission to study planet Jupiter. The mission was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

The Atlas V is powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180 booster engine and the Centaur upper stage is powered by the Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne RL10 engine. Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company. RD AMROSS LLC is a joint venture of Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne and NPO Energomash.

"Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne is honored to provide NASA with the propulsion required to launch this important satellite on its deep-space mission to study the planet," said Jim Maus, director, hypersonic and expendable propulsion programs, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne. "With nearly 50 years of flight, the RL10 continues to prove itself as the nation's most reliable upper-stage engine. We're pleased to see it continue that legacy."

"RD AMROSS congratulates NASA and the United Launch Alliance on another successful launch," said William Parsons, president and CEO of RD AMROSS. "We look forward to working together on future missions."

The five-year mission to Jupiter is designed to give scientists a better understanding of our solar system by revealing the origin and evolution of the planet. Juno will orbit Jupiter for about one year, studying its atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties.

The spacecraft will also map the planet's magnetic and gravity fields, and explore its poles to gain insight into the planet's enormous magnetic force field on its atmosphere.

In addition to manufacturing the RD-180 and the RL10, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne is also developing the J-2X engine to power NASA's next era of human spaceflight. The engine is being tested under a development contract awarded by NASA and is designed to power the upper stage of a heavy-lift launch vehicle in anticipation of NASA's next era of human spaceflight.

ULA Launches Juno Spacecraft on Five-Year Journey to Study Jupiter
Cape Canaveral FL - A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Juno spacecraft for NASA lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 here at 12:25 p.m. EDT Friday.

"Congratulations to the entire team for successfully launching Juno on its five-year interplanetary journey to Jupiter," said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Mission Operations. "The ULA team is very proud to serve a critical role in delivering one-of-a-kind NASA payloads in support of the global science community and we look forward to the scientific discoveries from the Juno mission."

The launch of the Juno mission marks the second of five NASA missions scheduled to launch this year on ULA vehicles within a six month timeframe.

"This six-month launch campaign for NASA is unprecedented not only for its reach across our solar system, but also for the tempo and precision required together with our NASA Launch Services Program customer and their mission customers in order to achieve successful execution," said Sponnick.

This mission was launched aboard an Atlas V 551 vehicle configuration, which includes a 5-meter diameter RUAG Space payload fairing.

The booster for this mission was powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180 engine along with five Aerojet solid rocket motors. The Centaur upper stage was powered by a single Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne RL-10A engine.

Juno will improve our understanding of our solar system's beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter. After a five-year journey, Juno will spend a year and 33 orbits studying many scientific aspects of the largest planet in our solar system.

Specifically, Juno will determine how much water is in the atmosphere, measure composition, temperature and cloud motions, map the magnetic and gravity fields, as well as explore and study Jupiter's magnetosphere.

ULA's next launch is the Delta II GRAIL mission for NASA currently scheduled for Sept. 8, 2011 from Space Launch Complex-17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Following the GRAIL launch, ULA is scheduled to launch another Delta II in October with an advanced weather satellite and then an Atlas V in November with the Mars Science Laboratory, both for NASA.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Washington (AFP) Aug 5, 2011 - NASA on Friday launched the billion-dollar solar-powered spacecraft Juno on a five-year journey to Jupiter aiming to discover what makes up the solar system's biggest planet.

The unmanned satellite observatory was propelled into space aboard a 197-foot (60-meter) tall Atlas V rocket, blasting off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 12:25 pm (1625 GMT).

"Ignition and liftoff on the Atlas V with Juno on a trek to Jupiter, a planetary piece of the puzzle on the beginning of our solar system," said a NASA television commentator.

Some 53 minutes later Juno separated from its carrier rocket, heading off solo into space.

The launch of Juno showed "NASA is still open for business and leading the world in space exploration," said NASA chief Charles Bolden, just over two weeks after the last ever shuttle flight landed back on Earth and the program was mothballed.

"The largest planet in our neighborhood is about to reveal its secrets, and everything Juno finds will help us understand more about the origins and evolution of our solar system. This is exciting stuff," Bolden wrote on the NASA website.

Once it arrives in July 2016, the spacecraft will orbit the poles of the gas giant, which has more than twice the mass of all planets in the solar system combined and is believed to be the first planet that took shape around the Sun.

Named after the wife of the Roman god Jupiter, the $1.1 billion spacecraft is NASA's first mission there since it launched Galileo in 1989, and it aims for 30 orbits over a period of one year.

Juno will get closer to Jupiter than any other NASA spacecraft and will be the first to undertake a polar orbit of the planet, said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator and scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

"One of the primary goals of Juno.... is (probing) the origin of Jupiter and the origin of our solar system," Bolton said Friday just before the launch.

"Juno is set up to learn about that early part of the solar system and learn how Jupiter formed, and by measuring the ingredients we are really looking for the recipe of planet formation."

NASA's Galileo, an orbiter and probe that launched 22 years ago, entered the planet's orbit in 1995 and plunged into Jupiter in 2003, ending its life.

Other NASA spacecraft -- including Voyager 1 and 2, Ulysses and New Horizons -- have done flybys of the fifth planet from the Sun.

Juno will spend the first two years of its mission going around the Sun, then will return for a flyby of Earth which will give a gravitational boost to accelerate Juno on a three-year path toward Jupiter.

When it gets there, Juno -- orbiting around 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) above the gas giant -- will make use of a series of instruments, some of which were provided by European space agency partners Italy, Belgium, France and Denmark, to learn about the workings of the planet and what is inside.

Two key experiments will gauge how much water is in Jupiter and whether the planet "has a core of heavy elements at the center, or whether it is just gas all the way down," Bolton said at a press briefing last week.

Scientists also hope to learn more about Jupiter's magnetic fields and its Great Red Spot, a storm that has been raging for more than 300 years.

"One of the fundamental questions is how deep are the roots to that red spot? How does it maintain itself for so long?" said Bolton.

Juno is carrying a few toys as part of a campaign to raise awareness among young people about math and science.

Three 1.5 inch figurines made by LEGO toys are on board -- a likeness of the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei who discovered four of Jupiter's moons, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno.

Back in 2003, when plans for Juno were being crafted, NASA briefly considered using some sort of nuclear fuel to power the spacecraft, but engineers decided it would be quicker and less risky to go with solar.

Juno is part of a series of new planetary science missions, to be followed by Grail, which is headed to the moon in September, and the Mars Science Laboratory set to take off in November.

"These missions are designed to tackle some of the toughest questions in planetary science, all about our origin and the evolution of the solar system," said Jim Green, director of the planetary science division at NASA headquarters in Washington.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Washington (AFP) Aug 5, 2011 - NASA is poised to launch on Friday a billion dollar solar-powered spacecraft called Juno on a five-year journey to Jupiter in search of what makes up the solar system's biggest planet.

The unmanned satellite observatory is set to propel into space aboard a 197-foot (60-meter) tall rocket, blasting off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 11:34 am (1534 GMT).

Weather conditions were 70 percent favorable for launch, NASA said.

Nearly an hour after launch, Juno "will separate from the Centaur upper stage of its Atlas V rocket. At this point, Jupiter will be five years and 1,740 million miles (2,800 million kilometers) away," the US space agency said.

Once it arrives in July 2016, the spacecraft will orbit the poles of the gas giant, which has more than twice the mass of all planets in the solar system combined and is believed to be the first planet that took shape around the Sun.

The $1.1 billion mission aims for 30 orbits around the planet over a period of one year.

Juno will get closer to Jupiter than any other NASA spacecraft and will be the first to undertake a polar orbit of the planet, said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator and scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

"If we want to go back in time and understand where we came from and how the planets were made, Jupiter holds this secret," he told a press briefing last week.

In 1989, NASA launched Galileo, an orbiter and probe that entered the planet's orbit in 1995 and plunged into Jupiter in 2003, ending its life.

Other NASA spacecraft -- including Voyager 1 and 2, Ulysses and New Horizons -- have done flybys of the fifth planet from the Sun.

When it gets there Juno, orbiting around 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) above the gas giant, will make use of a series of instruments, some of which were provided by European space agency partners Italy, Belgium and France, to learn about the workings of the planet and what is inside.

Two key experiments are to gauge how much water is in Jupiter and whether the planet "has a core of heavy elements at the center, or whether it is just gas all the way down," said Bolton.

Scientists also hope to learn more about Jupiter's magnetic fields and its Great Red Spot, a storm that has been raging for more than 300 years.

"One of the fundamental questions is how deep are the roots to that red spot? How does it maintain itself for so long?" said Bolton.

Back in 2003, when plans for Juno were being crafted, NASA briefly considered using some sort of nuclear fuel to power the spacecraft, but engineers decided it would be quicker and less risky to go with solar, he said.

Juno is part of a series of new planetary science missions, to be followed by Grail which is headed to the moon in September and the Mars Science Laboratory set to take off in November.

"These missions are designed to tackle some of the toughest questions in planetary science, all about our origin and the evolution of the solar system," said Jim Green, director of the planetary science division at NASA headquarters in Washington.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Aug 04, 2011 - NASA's Juno spacecraft is getting ready to lift off on Friday, Aug. 5, 2011. On Aug. 4, at about 5 a.m. PDT (8 a.m. EDT), the Jupiter explorer will be rolled some 1,800 feet (about 550 meters) from the 286-foot-tall (87-meter) Vertical Integration Facility, where the Atlas V rocket and Juno were mated, to its launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

"Our next move will be much farther - about 1,740 million miles [2,800 million kilometers] to Jupiter," said Jan Chodas, Juno project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The rollout completes Juno's journey on Earth, and now we're excited to be taking our first step into space."

The launch period for Juno opens Aug. 5 and extends through Aug. 26. The spacecraft is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2016. For an Aug. 5 liftoff, the launch window opens at 8:34 a.m. PDT (11:34 a.m. EDT) and remains open through 9:43 a.m. PDT (12:43 p.m. EDT).

At Cape Canaveral, Atlas V rockets are assembled vertically on a mobile launch platform in the Vertical Integration Facility south of the pad. The mobile platform, carrying Juno and its rocket, will be rolled out to the pad using four 250-ton (227,000-kilogram) rail cars.

When launched, Juno will take almost 11 minutes to reach its temporary orbit around Earth. About 30 minutes later, the Atlas rocket's second stage will perform a second, nine-minute burn, after which Juno will be on its five-year journey to the largest planet in the solar system.

Juno Spacecraft to Carry Three Figurines to Jupiter Orbit
NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft will carry the 1.5-inch likeness of Galileo Galilei, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno to Jupiter when the spacecraft launches this Friday, Aug. 5. The inclusion of the three mini-statues, or figurines, is part of a joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the partnership between NASA and the LEGO Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

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.

Juno Jupiter Mission to Carry Plaque Dedicated to Galileo
A plaque dedicated to the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei will be carried to Jupiter aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft. Among his many achievements, Galileo Galilei discovered that moons orbited Jupiter in 1610. These satellites - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - are also known as the Galilean moons.

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."

An image of the plaque is online here.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:14 AEST Atlanta GA (SPX) Aug 05, 2011 - In August of 2016, when NASA's Juno Mission begins sending back information about the atmosphere of the planet Jupiter, research done by Georgia Institute of Technology engineers using a 2,400-pound pressure vessel will help scientists understand what the data means. The Juno probe is scheduled to be launched August 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Because Jupiter has been largely unchanged since its formation at the birth of our solar system, scientists hope Juno will resolve unanswered questions not only about the massive planet, but also about how our solar system evolved. Among the key questions are how much water exists there, and how that water evolved from the hydrogen-rich early solar system.

"Jupiter collected much of the original solar nebula, that sheet of material that surrounded our sun when it formed," said Paul Steffes, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Juno Mission Team. "Knowing how much water is in the atmosphere of Jupiter is going to give us real insight into how the whole solar system has evolved. Understanding Jupiter really helps us understand how we got started."

To detect and measure water, Juno will carry a radiometer that can measure radio emissions produced by the planet itself at microwave frequencies. As those signals pass through Jupiter's atmosphere, they are altered by the water and other constituents. Understanding how the signals were altered can tell scientists much about the atmosphere of the giant planet. The probe will receive microwave signals at six different frequencies that scientists know are emitted at various levels of the planet's atmosphere.

"The intensity of the microwave radiation at specific frequencies gets weaker depending on how much water is there," Steffes explained. "We'll be able to not only say whether or not there's water there, but we'll also be able to say at what altitude it exists based on the signatures of the microwaves coming out of the planet's atmosphere."

Interpreting that data will require knowledge that Steffes and his students are developing by simulating the Jupiter atmosphere in their pressure vessel, which is located inside an oven on the roof of Georgia Tech's Van Leer Building.

Though Jupiter is a long way from the sun, the planet's gravitational forces create high temperatures and tremendous pressures in the lower layers of the atmosphere where the water is believed to exist. The laboratory atmospheric simulations allow Steffes and his students to study the behavior of microwave signals passing through ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, helium, hydrogen and water vapor at pressures up to 100 times those of the Earth.

The researchers, including graduate student Danny Duong, have made thousands of measurements at different temperatures, pressures and microwave frequencies as the signals pass through different combinations of gases. The laboratory work is expected to be completed during 2012.

"The measurements we've made will allow the radiometer on Juno to be calibrated," Steffes explained. "When Juno gets to Jupiter, we'll know what conditions each microwave signature corresponds to."

Earlier attempts to quantify the water on Jupiter - the solar system's largest planet - produced conflicting information. Steffes assisted the Galileo mission, which dropped a probe into the planet's atmosphere in 1995 and found surprisingly little water. Yet when the Comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter in 1994, it stirred up oxygen that led scientists to believe water was abundant.

Once Juno reaches the planet, it will go into an elliptical polar orbit to avoid Jupiter's deadly radiation belts, which would harm the probe's electronic systems. Juno is scheduled to make 30 orbits, each of which will take 11 days. The researchers then expect to take about 18 months to process the information sent back to Earth.

Beyond measuring water on Jupiter, Juno will also study the planet's gravitation field in an effort to determine whether a solid core exists and how the giant body rotates. It will also measure magnetic fields and investigate Jupiter's auroras, which are the strongest in the solar system. And it will take a look at the planet's polar areas for the first time ever.

Juno is also notable because it will be the first deep-space probe to be powered by photovoltaic arrays, which were less expensive than the nuclear generators used on earlier missions.

Steffes has been studying planetary atmospheres for more than 25 years, and has simulated conditions on Venus, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus in addition to Jupiter. The work has continued under the same contract since 1984. Georgia Tech's research into other planets goes back more than 50 years, Steffes noted.

Studies of other planetary atmospheres can now be done from Earth using radio telescopes such as the Very Large Array in New Mexico, or the new Atacama array in Chile. But Jupiter's radiation belts, which are made up of energized particles spewed into the atmosphere by the volcanic moon Io, prevent that.

"To test for water, you have to operate at frequencies that are pretty low, about the same as a cell phone," Steffes said. "But the radiation belts are generating huge amounts of noise at those frequencies, so we couldn't do this observation from Earth because the radiation belts would mask the signal from Jupiter's atmosphere. We are very fortunate to have this opportunity to observe Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft."

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