National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has declared that its spacecraft Juno has broken the Solar Power Distance Record. The solar powered spacecraft of NASA named Juno broke the previous record of travelling farthest distance set by Rosetta spacecraft of the European Space Agency. NASA’s Juno travelled 793 million kilometer to break this record on January 13, 2016. Before this, Rosetta spacecraft of the European Space Agency travelled till 792 million kilometers.
About Spacecraft Juno
- Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (in USA) on August 5, 2011
- The Juno mission is being managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
- Juno is carrying 9 meter long three solar arrays tying 18,698 individual solar cells. Total weight of Juno is about 4 tonne
- Juno has 28 percent conversion rate turning sunlight into power it can make energy with limited amount of sunlight
- Juno is a NASA’s New Frontiers mission to the planet Jupiter. It is scheduled to reach Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
- The objective behind placing Juno polar orbit was to find out the origin of Jupitor, its surface, its atmosphere, etc.
It is expected that Juno’s maximum distance from the sun during its 16-month science mission will be about 517 million miles (832 million kilometers).
