05.09.13
Juno Position & Status
View of Juno’s position on May 10 from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System.
As
of May 10, Juno was approximately 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from
Earth. The one-way radio signal travel time between Earth and Juno is currently
about 4.5 minutes. Juno is currently traveling at a velocity of about 16 miles
(25 kilometers) per second relative to the sun, and increasing. Velocity
relative to Earth is about 4.7 miles (7.6 kilometers) per second. Juno has now
traveled 722 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) since launch.
The spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally. Four instruments -- JEDI, MWR, Waves, and MAG -- are turned on.
Juno’s mission ops team performed a flush of the spacecraft’s main engine on May 1, firing the engine for a couple of seconds. The team does this maintenance activity about once per year to flush contaminants from the propellant lines that feed the main engine.
Available power to Juno’s solar arrays continues to increase as the spacecraft heads closer to the sun on approach to its Earth flyby gravity assist maneuver on Oct. 9. Juno is now approximately 1.45 AU from the sun (i.e., inside the orbit of Mars), after having reached a maximum distance from the sun of 210 million miles (338 million kilometers, or 2.3 AU) in Sept. 2012. The spacecraft reaches perihelion, the closest point to the sun in its orbit, in August 2013. An AU, or astronomical unit, is a convenient measure of distance between places in the solar system. It is equal to the distance from the Sun to Earth (93 million miles or 150 million kilometers).
See Juno’s current position, speed and more via NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3D interactive. Launch the Juno module or view Juno in the standard Eyes on the Solar System interface.
The spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally. Four instruments -- JEDI, MWR, Waves, and MAG -- are turned on.
Juno’s mission ops team performed a flush of the spacecraft’s main engine on May 1, firing the engine for a couple of seconds. The team does this maintenance activity about once per year to flush contaminants from the propellant lines that feed the main engine.
Available power to Juno’s solar arrays continues to increase as the spacecraft heads closer to the sun on approach to its Earth flyby gravity assist maneuver on Oct. 9. Juno is now approximately 1.45 AU from the sun (i.e., inside the orbit of Mars), after having reached a maximum distance from the sun of 210 million miles (338 million kilometers, or 2.3 AU) in Sept. 2012. The spacecraft reaches perihelion, the closest point to the sun in its orbit, in August 2013. An AU, or astronomical unit, is a convenient measure of distance between places in the solar system. It is equal to the distance from the Sun to Earth (93 million miles or 150 million kilometers).
See Juno’s current position, speed and more via NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3D interactive. Launch the Juno module or view Juno in the standard Eyes on the Solar System interface.