Next for NASA: Solar-powered Jupiter probe
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's upcoming mission to Jupiter can't get much greener than this: a solar-powered, windmill-shaped spacecraft.
The robotic explorer Juno is set to become the most distant probe ever powered by the sun. Juno is equipped with three tractor-trailer-size solar panels for its 2-billion-mile journey into the outer solar system. It will be launched Friday morning aboard an unmanned Atlas V rocket -- barely two weeks after NASA's final space shuttle flight.
The shuttle's demise is giving extra oomph to the $1.1-billion voyage to the largest and probably oldest planet in the solar system. Scientists hope to learn more about planetary origins through Juno's exploration of the giant gas-filled planet, a body far different from rocky Earth and Mars.
"Look at it this way -- it is a new era," said Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science. "Humans plan to go beyond low-Earth orbit. When we do that, it's not like 'Star Trek.' It's not 'go where no man has gone before.' "
NASA's blueprint would have astronauts reach an asteroid by 2025 and Mars a decade later. NASA's Grail mission -- twin spacecraft to launch next month to the moon -- employs solar panels.
'A million years isn't enough' NewsdayTV goes behind the scenes of the day Rex Heuermann was sentenced for the Gilgo killings.
'A million years isn't enough' NewsdayTV goes behind the scenes of the day Rex Heuermann was sentenced for the Gilgo killings.
