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NASA’s Jupiter bound Juno spacecraft is streaking towards
earth for critical gravity assist today, September 9th. This flyby
is critical as Juno will use the earth’s gravity to boost its speed allowing it
to get to Jupiter in 2016. While Juno executes this maneuver, it will have a
front row seat, an amazing view of the earth/moon system. The spacecraft will
capture unprecedented footage as it streaks towards the planet giving us a unique,
never before seen perspective of our home world.
When Juno arrives at Jupiter on July 4th, 2016
its prime mission will be discovering Jupiter’s origins, how the planet was
formed and how that relates to the other plants of the solar system. The
mission will last one year entailing 33 orbits around the gas giant each
lasting 11 days bringing the spacecraft to within 3000 miles above the Jupiter’s
cloud deck. Juno will also take unprecedented measurements of the planet’s extraordinary
magnetic field, map the interior structure, atmosphere and try to determine whether
or not Jupiter has a rocky core, or is it just a big ball of gas.
Juno
was launched on August 5th, 2011 atop an ATLAS V Rocket. Juno is a
fairly massive spacecraft so the 551 configuration (the most powerful configuration)
of the ATLAS V was used. Even with the added power of the 551 a flyby of earth
was still needed to get that extra speed boost to continue on to Jupiter. A
direct trajectory to Jupiter would have required a larger more expensive
rocket, more fuel and a larger spacecraft.
While Juno probably won’t be visible to the naked eye, it should be possible to see the spacecraft with the aid of binoculars. For those who won’t be able to spot the flyby, Slooh will be tracking Juno live. You can watch it all live below.
Source: Slooh
