Just over 1.5 hours to go until NASA’s Juno spacecraft maneuvers itself into orbit around the planet Jupiter. This is an amazing human achievement! (Yes that crazy person yelling in celebration out her window later tonight will be me!)
According to an earlier NASA press conference at JPL, two of the big things that need to be accomplished tonight are: 1) the actual orbital insertion maneuver, and 2) the successful aligning of the spacecraft at the Sun to enable its solar arrays to acquire power. The latter will be critical because the craft will only be operating on a limited reserve of battery power until it gets aligned with the Sun and the “juice” starts flowing through it after its 1.7 billion mile journey.
NASA TV 10:30 p.m. EST, Monday, July 4 – Live Coverage of the Juno Orbital Insertion at Jupiter (all channels)
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