KSC-2011-6293

Description

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- From left, Jim Adams, the deputy director of NASA's Planetary Science Division; Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI); and Jan Chodas, Juno's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), participate in a post-launch news conference following the successful liftoff of the Juno spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Launch was at 12:25 p.m. EDT Aug. 5. The solar-powered spacecraft now is on a five-year journey to Jupiter, where it will orbit the planet's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere and investigate the existence of a solid planetary core. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/juno. Photo credit: Kim Shiflett