It’s a big day in spaceflight today because, after a journey of 2.8 billion kilometers (1.7 billion miles) over five years, NASA’s Juno spacecraft is about to arrive at Jupiter.
If everything goes according to plan, Juno will become only the second spacecraft in history to orbit Jupiter, the first being the Galileo spacecraft between 1995 and 2003. And you’ll be able to watch the action live – at least, the action back in mission control on Earth.
NASA will begin streaming coverage of Juno’s arrival today at 10.30pm EDT (3.30am BST tomorrow). At 11.18pm EDT (4.18am BST tomorrow), the spacecraft is scheduled to begin a 35-minute burn, which will slow it down enough to be captured by Jupiter’s gravity and enter orbit. It’s not a done deal, though; this burn will be quite hair-raising.
Juno is expected to enter orbit just before midnight EDT (5am BST tomorrow), so there might be a few tired eyes in offices tomorrow if you’re planning to stay up and watch it. But if it’s anything like the arrival of New Horizons at Pluto, the Philae landing on Comet 67P, or the Curiosity landing on Mars, you can expect to see plenty of celebrations if it all works, which will be pretty fun to watch.
We’ve embedded the NASA TV stream where you can watch all the action below, and if you want to learn more about Juno, check out our feature on the mission.
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