Juno Mission to Jupiter: Unveiling the Giant Planet's Secrets

1. Table of Contents: Mission Overview Timeline Scientific Objectives Spacecraft & Instruments Equipment Links

2. MISSION OVERVIEW Juno’s principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our solar system during its formation. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter can also provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars. Back to Table of Contents

3. MISSION OVERVIEW The Juno spacecraft will investigate Jupiter's origins, its interior structure, its deep atmosphere and its magnetosphere from an innovative, highly elliptical orbit with a suite of seven science instruments. In addition, a camera called JunoCam will be used by student participants in the Juno Education and Public Outreach program to take the first images of Jupiter's polar regions. Back to Table of Contents

4. August 5, 2011: Juno spacecraft launches October 9, 2013: Earth flyby gravity assist July 5, 2016: Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter Oct 2017: Juno will end operations. TIMELINE Back to Table of Contents

5. SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES Origin – Jupiter’s solid core and abundance of heavy metals in the atmosphere make it an ideal model to understand the origin of giant planets. Juno will measure global abundances of oxygen and nitrogen by mapping the gravitational field and using microwave observations of water and ammonia. Interior – Juno will map Jupiter’s gravitation and magnetic fields, revealing the interior structure, the origin of the magnetic field, the mass of its core, the nature of deep convection, and the abundance of water.

6. SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES Atmosphere – Jupiter has the most massive atmosphere of all the planets. By mapping variations in atmospheric composition, temperature, cloud opacity and dynamics, Juno will determine the global structure and dynamics of Jupiter’s atmosphere below the cloud tops for the first time. Magnetosphere – Jupiter’s powerful magnetospheric dynamics create the brightest aurora in our solar system. Juno will measure the distribution of the charged particles, their associated fields, and the concurrent UV emissions of the planet’s polar magnetosphere, greatly improving our understanding of this remarkable phenomena. Back to Table of Contents

7. SPACECRAFT For Juno, like NASA’s earlier Pioneer spacecraft, spinning makes the spacecraft's pointing extremely stable and easy to control. Just after launch, and before its solar arrays are deployed, Juno will be spun-up by rocket motors on its still attached second-stage rocket booster. While in orbit at Jupiter, the spinning spacecraft sweeps the fields of view of its instruments through space once for each rotation. At three rotations per minute, the instruments' fields of view sweep across Jupiter about 400 times in the two hours it takes to fly from pole to pole. 

8. SPACECRAFT Jupiter’s orbit is five times farther from the Sun than Earth’s, so the giant planet receives 25 times less sunlight than Earth. Juno will be the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate at such a great distance from the sun. Three solar panels extend outward from Juno’s hexagonal body, giving the overall spacecraft a span of more than 66 feet (20 meters). The solar panels will remain in sunlight continuously from launch through end of mission, except for a few minutes during the Earth flyby.  Back to Table of Contents

9. SPACECRAFT Jupiter’s orbit is five times farther from the Sun than Earth’s, so the giant planet receives 25 times less sunlight than Earth. Juno will be the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate at such a great distance from the sun. Three solar panels extend outward from Juno’s hexagonal body, giving the overall spacecraft a span of more than 66 feet (20 meters). The solar panels will remain in sunlight continuously from launch through end of mission, except for a few minutes during the Earth flyby.  Back to Table of Contents

10. SPACECRAFT Juno will avoid Jupiter's highest radiation regions by approaching over the north, dropping to an altitude below the planet's radiation belts – which are analogous to Earth’s Van Allen belts, but far more deadly – and then exiting over the south. To protect sensitive spacecraft electronics, Juno will carry the first radiation shielded electronics vault, a critical feature for enabling sustained exploration in such a heavy radiation environment.  Back to Table of Contents

11. Magnetometer Microwave Radiometer Plasma Waves Instrument Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper JunoCam Ultraviolet Spectrograph JEDI Jade Gravity Science Spacecraft Instruments Back to Table of Contents

12. Magnetometer/Advanced Stellar Compass The magnetic field investigation has three goals: mapping of the magnetic field, determining the dynamics of Jupiter's interior, and determination of the three-dimensional structure of the polar magnetosphere. To achieve these goals, the mission employs a Flux Gate Magnetometer and an Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC) to provide accurate pointing information of the Juno spacecraft for precise mapping. Back to Equipment Index

13. Microwave Radiometer The primary goal of the Juno Microwave Radiometer is to probe the deep atmosphere of Jupiter at radio wavelengths using six separate radiometers to measure the planet's thermal emissions. The MWR experiment will provide answers to two key questions: How did Jupiter form? and How deep is the atmospheric circulation that was measured from the Galileo Probe down to 22 Earth atmospheric pressures at sea level, and at the cloud top level from imaging data returned by other missions? Back to Equipment Index

14. Plasma Waves Instrument Plasma Waves Instrument will measure plasma waves and radio waves in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Back to Equipment Index

15. Jovian Infrared AuroralMapper The primary goal of JIRAM is to probe the upper layers of Jupiter's atmosphere down to pressures of 5-7 Earth atmospheric pressure at sea level using an imager and a spectrometer. Back to Equipment Index

16. JunoCam The mission of JunoCam will be to provide views of Jupiter's polar region and very low latitude cloud belts. JunoCam is to facilitate education and public outreach. Back to Equipment Index

17. Ultraviolet Spectrograph Ultraviolet Spectrograph is an imaging spectrograph that is sensitive to ultraviolet emissions. Back to Equipment Index

18. Jupiter Energetic-particle Detector Instrument JEDI is a suite of detectors that will measure the energy and angular distribution of charged particles. Back to Equipment Index

19. Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment Jade will measure the distribution of electrons and the velocity distribution and composition of ions. Back to Equipment Index

20. Gravity Science The Juno Gravity Science Investigation will probe the mass properties of Jupiter by using the communication subsystem to perform Doppler tracking. Back to Equipment Index

21. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html http://newfrontiers.nasa.gov/missions_juno.html http://juno.wisc.edu/mission.html LINKS Additional information: Back to Table of Contents

22. Resources: http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/37654/1/05-2760.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/JUNOFactSheet2009_sm.pdf http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/missiondetails.cfm?mission=Juno