Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Juno spacecraft will make its seventh science flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops on Friday, September 1st, at 2:49pm PDT (5:49pm EDT and 21:49 UTC).
At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno’s orbit when it is closest to the planet’s center), the spacecraft will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops.
Juno launched on August 5th, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4th, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet’s cloud tops — as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers).
During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.
More information on the Juno mission is available at:
http://www.missionjuno.swri.edu
The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
