08.29.13
Juno Position & Status
View of Juno’s position on Aug. 30 from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System.
As of Aug. 30, Juno was approximately 24 million miles (38 million
kilometers) from Earth. The one-way radio signal travel time between Earth and
Juno is currently about 2 minutes. Juno is currently traveling at a velocity of
about 24 miles (38 kilometers) per second relative to the sun. Velocity
relative to Earth is about 7 miles (12 kilometers) per second. Juno has now
traveled 917 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers, or 9.9 AU) since launch.
The Juno spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally. All science instruments are powered off except for the magnetometer experiment, which continues to operate in low-power mode.
Recent spacecraft significant events
The Juno mission operations team successfully executed a trajectory control maneuver (named TCM-6) using Juno’s attitude control thrusters on August 7, further refining spacecraft’s trajectory in preparation for the Oct. 9 Earth flyby gravity assist maneuver. With the completion of this maneuver Juno is, technically speaking, on course for Jupiter arrival in 2016. The spacecraft must still complete the Earth flyby to receive the gravity assist it needs in order to reach Jupiter, but the completion of TCM-6 has Juno on course to complete the flyby as planned.
The spacecraft reaches perihelion, the closest point in its current orbit around the sun, on Aug. 31. From that point onward, the sun’s rays will become increasingly faint. When Juno arrives at Jupiter, the arrays will produce about 450 Watts of electric power from a mere four percent of the light we receive at Earth’s distance from the sun.
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. Additional information about the mission is available on NASA's Juno mission pages.
The Juno spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally. All science instruments are powered off except for the magnetometer experiment, which continues to operate in low-power mode.
Recent spacecraft significant events
The Juno mission operations team successfully executed a trajectory control maneuver (named TCM-6) using Juno’s attitude control thrusters on August 7, further refining spacecraft’s trajectory in preparation for the Oct. 9 Earth flyby gravity assist maneuver. With the completion of this maneuver Juno is, technically speaking, on course for Jupiter arrival in 2016. The spacecraft must still complete the Earth flyby to receive the gravity assist it needs in order to reach Jupiter, but the completion of TCM-6 has Juno on course to complete the flyby as planned.
The spacecraft reaches perihelion, the closest point in its current orbit around the sun, on Aug. 31. From that point onward, the sun’s rays will become increasingly faint. When Juno arrives at Jupiter, the arrays will produce about 450 Watts of electric power from a mere four percent of the light we receive at Earth’s distance from the sun.
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. Additional information about the mission is available on NASA's Juno mission pages.