NASA has scheduled a briefing at NASA´s Washington headquarters to discuss the Juno spacecraft and it´s anticipated arrival at Jupiter on July 4, the space administration said.
The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency´s website.
The solar-powered spacecraft will perform a Jupiter orbit insertion maneuver–a 35-minute burn of its main engine–which will slow Juno by about 1,200 mph (542 meters per second) so it can be captured into the gas giant´s polar orbit. Juno will loop Jupiter 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above its swirling cloud tops.
Juno is expected to provide answers to ongoing mysteries about Jupiter´s core, composition and magnetic fields, and provide new clues about the origins of our solar system.
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