NASA's Juno spacecraft launches on journey to Jupiter(Unprecedented exploration of our solar system)

Source: LA Times Via The Sacramento Bee

By SCOTT GOLD

LOS ANGELES -- The NASA spacecraft Juno, en route to an unprecedented exploration of Jupiter and the origins of the solar system, lifted Friday from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Juno launched aboard an Atlas V rocket at 12:25 p.m. EDT, into warm, blue skies. The craft soared over the Atlantic Ocean and was then expected to conduct two "burns" to set it on the proper trajectory for a five-year, 1.7-billion-mile trip to Jupiter.

"Today, with the launch of the Juno spacecraft, NASA began a journey to yet another new frontier," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "The future of exploration includes cutting-edge science like this to help us better understand our solar system and an ever-increasing array of challenging destinations."

The liftoff was delayed briefly - first to ensure that the craft's helium system was in proper order, and then to shoo away a boater who had drifted to close to the launch pad. But the operation still took place at one of the first moments in a 22-day launch window that opened Friday morning.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/05/3819450/nasas-juno-spacecraft-launches.html

---

NASA orbiter launches Friday to seek out Jupiter's secrets

Source: Houston Chronicle

After a 5-year trip, it will spend a year in orbit

SAN ANTONIO — Juno, a five-year, San Antonio-led mission to Jupiter, is set to launch Friday from Cape Canaveral with the goal of unraveling the mysteries of the first and largest planet in Earth's solar system — and the hope that information will help explain how the solar system was formed.

Juno will orbit Jupiter more than 30 times over the course of a year at the end of its 400-million-mile journey, its nine onboard instruments studying the composition of the planet, its atmosphere, gravity and powerful magnetic field — the most powerful of all the planets.

"When the cloud of material that eventually became our solar system formed, most of it went into the sun, and then all the leftovers made our solar system," said Scott Bolton, director of space science at Southwest Research Institute and the lead scientist for Juno.

"Most of those leftovers went into Jupiter," Bolton added. "So we go back to Jupiter to try to figure out, OK, what exactly was in those leftovers, and what state were they in that allowed all of the planets to be formed and for Earth to be made and life to begin? We're looking to discover the recipe for planets, if you will, and we're back at the ingredient list."

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7681085.html

:)

a working NASA to receive the data from this thing in five years!

I'm still in Shuttle withdrawal. Waaaaaaa.

On another topic, I LOVE your signature line. Please put it on a t-shirt and sell it.
And make sure to PM me where to buy it. :)

You'd think they'd want at least the people directing air traffic for commercial flights they may be on to their luxury vacations, bribery meetings, mistresses, "lost" weekends, et al, to get a decent wage and plenty of rest. But no, they'd rather shut down the FAA to destroy labor unions. What wouldn't they do to end NASA?

I'd bet money that, unless we get rid of the corporate-run 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, in five years there will be no NASA and the Pukes will be selling the datastream from Jupiter to China.

Treasonous S.O.B.'s!

And they sent lego minifigures representing the Gods on Juno

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/08/lego-minifigs-soon-headed-for-deep-space/

Won't end this mission, because it may not fit their randian fantasies of childhood.