October 10, 2013

The Juno space probe complex trajectory to reach the planet Jupiter (Image NASA/JPL)

It was yesterday’s afternoon in the USA when NASA’s Juno spacecraft did a flyby being within 500 km (350 miles) of Earth. This maneuver is part of the complex trajectory that will bring Juno to Jupiter and had the purpose of using the Earth’s gravity to increase its speed enough to reach Jupiter. During that operation, it went unexpectedly into “safe mode” but it seems that it actually has no real problems.