On June 24, at exactly 9:57 and 48 seconds a.m. PDT, NASA’s Juno spacecraft was 5.5 million miles (8.9 million kilometers) from its July 4钍与木星约会。在过去的两周里，发生了几个里程碑，这是一个成功的35分钟的火箭电机烧伤的关键，这将使机器人探险家将瓦斯巨头周围的极性轨道放入极性轨道上。
“We have over five years of spaceflight experience and only 10 days to Jupiter orbit insertion,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It is a great feeling to put all the interplanetary space in the rearview mirror and have the biggest planet in the solar system in our windshield.”
On June 11, Juno began transmitting to and receiving data from Earth around the clock. This constant contact will keep the mission team informed on any developments with their spacecraft within tens of minutes of it occurring. On June 20, the protective cover that shields Juno’s main engine from micrometeorites and interstellar dust was opened, and the software program that will command the spacecraft through the all-important rocket burn was uplinked.
One of the important near-term events remaining on Juno’s pre-burn itinerary is the pressurization of its propulsion system on June 28. The following day, all instrumentation not geared toward the successful insertion of Juno into orbit around Jupiter on July 4 will be turned off.
“如果它没有帮助我们进入轨道，它被关闭了，”朱诺·科学研究所的首席调查员Scott Bolton说，San Antonio的主要调查员说。“这是这种火箭烧伤的批判。虽然我们不会获得图像，但我们将获得最终方法的地球，我们有一些有趣的图片，这些图片是木星及其卫星从五百万英里之外看起来像什么。“
特派团光学摄像机，Junocam，2016年6月21日的Jupiter，距离煤气巨头的距离为680万英里（1090万公里）。在图像中，就在中心的右侧是木星，其独特的漩涡曲折的橙色，棕色和白色。在木星的左侧（从右到左）是星球的四大卫星 - 欧罗巴，IO，洛克斯托和甘美德。朱诺正在靠近木星的北极，为航天器提供了关于Jovian系统的独特视角。以前的任务，逐渐上的Jupiter逐渐降低了地球赤道的系统。
JunoCam is an outreach instrument — its inclusion in this mission of exploration was to allow the public to come along for the ride with Juno. JunoCam’s optics were designed to acquire high-resolution views of Jupiter’s poles while the spacecraft is flying much closer to the planet. Juno will be getting closer to the cloud tops of the planet than any mission before it, and the image resolution of the massive gas giant will be the best ever taken by a spacecraft.
所有朱诺的文书包括Junocam，计划在实现轨道后大约两天后恢复。预计junocam图像预计将从航天器返回，以便在8月下旬或9月初开始向公众发布。
“This image is the start of something great,” said Bolton. “In the future we will see Jupiter’s polar auroras from a new perspective. We will see details in rolling bands of orange and white clouds like never before, and even the Great Red Spot.
Juno Spacecraft于2011年8月5日推出，来自佛罗里达州Cape Canaveral。
JPL管理San Antonio的西南研究所斯科顿斯科顿斯科敦·斯科顿朱诺任务。朱诺是美国宇航局新滨东课程的一部分，该计划在美国宇航局的马歇尔空间航班中心管理，阿拉巴马州亨茨维尔，为美国宇航局的科学任务理事会。洛克希德马丁空间系统丹佛建造了航天器。加州帕萨迪纳，加利福尼亚州的加利福尼亚州技术研究所设法NASA的JPL。
提起：Aerospace + defense
