Published on July 24, 2017
On July 4, just hours before NASA’s Juno spacecraft was scheduled to arrive at the planet Jupiter, NASA held a press briefing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California to provide a status update on the mission. Once in Jupiter’s orbit, the spacecraft will circle the Jovian world 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops. This is the first time a spacecraft will orbit the poles of Jupiter, providing new answers to ongoing mysteries about the planet’s core, composition and magnetic fields.
