{"id":575662,"date":"2026-08-05T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/575662\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:54:12","slug":"on-this-day-in-space-nasas-juno-spacecraft-launches-to-jupiter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/575662\/","title":{"rendered":"On this day in space! NASA’s Juno spacecraft launches to Jupiter"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Aug. 5, 2011, NASA launched the Juno spacecraft<\/a> on a mission to study Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.<\/p>\n

The robotic spacecraft lifted off on an Atlas V rocket<\/a> from what is now Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and spent the next five years making the 1.74-billion-mile trek to Jupiter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next Stop, Jupiter! Launch Photos of NASA’s Juno Mission<\/a><\/p>\n

Since it arrived in Jupiter’s orbit in 2016, the Juno spacecraft<\/a> has taken the most amazing photos of Jupiter anyone has ever seen! But it has also taken plenty of scientific measurements to study Jupiter’s composition, magnetic fields, weather patterns and more.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 3<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasts off carrying NASA’s Juno mission. The launch marks the second of five launches for NASA in 2011.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Patrick H. Corkery\/United Launch Alliance)<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Juno spacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech)<\/p>\n

\"Juno<\/p>\n

Juno captured stunning look at Jupiter on April 10, 2020.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/SwRI\/MSSS; image processing by Kevin M. Gill \u00a9 CC BY)<\/p>\n

Why it mattered<\/p>\n

Juno is an interesting mission. It was the first dedicated orbiter at Jupiter since NASA’s prolific Galileo mission<\/a>, which ended in 2003, and is the first solar-powered spacecraft to the gas giant. Indeed, each of its three 30-foot-long solar wings is as long as a semi truck to collect enough sunlight to power its systems.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

But it’s the science that makes Juno stand out. When Galileo orbited Jupiter, its high-gain antenna did not fully deploy, meaning the probe was never able to record detailed video of Jupiter’s atmosphere<\/a> as hoped. While Juno was initially built to study the inner workings of Jupiter, its camera recorded the first detailed video of the planet’s clouds and atmosphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Juno spacecraft’s primary mission ended just 20 months after entering orbit, but NASA extended the orbiter’s mission<\/a> several times, most recently in 2021. That most recent extension sent Juno on multiple flybys of three of Jupiter’s largest moons, Ganymede<\/a>, Europa<\/a> and the volcanic moon Io<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

Juno’s observations are already helping the science planning of future missions to Jupiter, including science targets for the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer<\/a>, or JUICE, and NASA’s Europa Clipper<\/a> probes, which are currently en route to the giant planet.<\/p>\n

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space video archive on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Aug. 5, 2011, NASA launched the Juno spacecraft on a mission to study Jupiter, the largest planet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-575662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}