NASA prepares spacecraft for trip to Jupiter

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NASA prepares spacecraft for trip to Jupiter

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NASA scientists prepare the Juno spacecraft for a five-year journey to Jupiter.

04 August,2011 07:11 am

NASA scientists are hard at work preparing the vehicle for a mission to Jupiter. Scientists like Scott Bolton believe the planet holds clues about how the solar system was formed.Scott Bolton, Principal Investigator for the Juno Mission and Director of Space Science At Southwest Research Institute said, We go back to Jupiter because its the most massive and largest of all the planets. And so after the sun formed, Jupiter actually got most of the leftovers. If you take everything in the solar system it fits inside Jupiter, everything else other than the sun. And you take all of this and its still twice as massive as everything else.They are particular interested in finding out just how much water the planet holds and whether it has a solid core.He further said Were kind of going after this recipe of how planets are made -- were back at the ingredient list. Were getting the ingredients of Jupiter. Were going to understand what the structure is like inside and how is it built. And that will kind of give us guidance as to what happened in that early time that eventually led to us.Juno will spend a year orbiting the planet, coming as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 km) above Jupiters cloud tops. Galileo, the one other spacecraft to penetrate further into Jupiters atmosphere, was able to relay data for only 58 minutes before succumbing to the planets crushing pressure and intense heat.Juno is scheduled to launch August 5th for its five-year journey to Jupiter.