NASA’s Jupiter-exploring Juno spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Florida on Friday, August 5 at 11:34 am ET.
Perched inside the top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket, Juno will take five years to reach Jupiter, where it will remain in orbit for about a year before crashing down to the red planet. Objectives of the mission include determining the amount of water in Jupiter’s atmosphere, mapping the planet’s magnetic and gravity fields and studying those fields’ affect on the atmosphere and the deep structure of the planet.
