Juno spacecraft trajectory animation

The Juno spacecraft is scheduled to depart from Earth in August 2011. The spacecraft travels around the Sun, to a point beyond the orbit of Mars where it fires its main engine a couple of times. These deep space maneuvers set up the Earth flyby maneuver that occurs approximately two years after launch. The Earth flyby gives Juno the boost in velocity it needs to coast all the way to Jupiter. Juno arrives at Jupiter in July 2016.

Credit: NASA/JPL/SwRI

[Jeanpierre]

If only I was smart enough to do this type of gravity assist in Kerbal Space Program

[forknowledge]

please complete the animation showing it going into orbit of Jupiter. That would make this excellent!

[frogstamper]

Thats good news, thank you for taking the time to respond to my queries its very much appreciated....in the meantime fingers crossed for an incident free successful Juno mission...roll on July 2016.

[thetrialshot]

WOW were goin to see the Juno again after 2 - 3 years :)

[ndbaydc]

It's funny, these nasa guys probably wake up every morning like "how's Juno" . It's amazing

[Rabastan]

@Odin7thor You can download Celestia. It's a program that you can the positions not for planets only, but stars and galaxies as well

[geokidz]

Idk why this is so satisfying to watch._.

[Odinthor]

is there some kind of map where you can see the actual position of planets as of today?

[NASAJuno]

Our Mission Animations playlist will give a feel for what Juno's orbit is like -- especially the video titled, "Juno and Jupiter's radiation belts." We thread the needle between the planet and its innermost radiation belt, but over the course of the mission Jupiter's oblateness causes the orbit to shift (see "Juno Jupiter orbit animation") so that Juno passes increasingly into the more intense parts of the radiation belts. We get most of our radiation dose in the latter half of the mission.

[chrissame]

Where is the Apoapis and the periapsis....and where are the maneuver nodes?

[thegustavodag]

how does it gets in the orbit of jupiter? for what i know of sling shot manuver, the probe should slowdown and dive into the sun

[NASAJuno]

@MrMercury3488 At present Juno is not expected to have close encounters with any asteroids in the main belt. Note that JunoCam has a very wide angle field of view, and was designed to take amazing images of Jupiter from very close to the planet. Even if we flew within a few million km of an asteroid, JunoCam isn't designed to take high-resolution images during such an encounter. But the Jupiter images are going to rock!

[candymadeofdrugs]

This is amazing, I can't wait for Juno to get to Jupiter, is so exiting Godspeed Juno

[Sean_]

That makes sense, it is one of the first probes that will get that close to Jupiter. Plus if I'm not mistaken, wind speeds even in the thinner part of it's atmosphere are dangerously fast. I'd understand why you'd want a risk factor as close to zero as possible.

[NASAJuno]

You're describing a technique called aerobraking, which we have used before at Mars, but not at Jupiter. It's not out of the question that a future mission might employ aerobraking at Jupiter, but for Juno, conventional propulsion was the most straightforward, lowest-risk choice. (They did use it in the film 2010!)

[shukterhousejive]

Whoever came up with that lauch is a genius.

[robertb]

Love how they initiate the gravity assist from Earth by rendezvous just behind it's orbit. I wonder what Juno's velocity was at that point? Did you guys burn once Earth's orbital trajectory began to veer from Jupiter's?

[NASAJuno]

We're working on that very question. For observers in the U.S. the spacecraft might be visible with a telescope the night after the flyby, but it will be quite faint. It is possible that observers in South Africa and eastern India might be able to catch a view with a telescope or binoculars during the flyby -- we plan to post info on the NASA website by sometime this summer. Hopefully someone will catch a photo of Juno streaking across the stars and share it!

[NASAJuno]

An RPS could have simplified some of the operational requirements for the mission, but Juno can fully achieve its science goals using a solar power system. As you're well aware, some other missions to Jupiter and the outer planets might be enabled or significantly enhanced by the use of RPS.

[amidpoof]

what was the one extra turn around the sun for ?