View of Juno’s position on May 24 from Eyes on the Solar System. (Click for an expanded view.)

See Juno’s current position and velocity using NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3D interactive or the NASA/JPL Solar System Simulator.

As of May 24, Juno was approximately 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The one-way radio signal travel time between Earth and Juno is currently about 4.4 minutes. Juno is currently traveling at a velocity of about 17 miles (27 kilometers) per second relative to the sun, and increasing. Velocity relative to Earth is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) per second. Juno has now traveled 742 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) since launch.

The Juno spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally.

Recent spacecraft significant events Mission controllers received confirmation from the spacecraft on May 22 that its MWR, JEDI and Waves instruments were powered off as planned. The magnetometer experiment remains powered on at low data rates. The planned instrument shutdown was done in preparation for the spacecraft’s upcoming switch to its lower data rate antennas as it begins the next phase of its mission, dubbed “Inner Cruise 3” on May 29.

The solar-powered Juno spacecraft and its saucer-shaped high-gain antenna (or HGA) always point sunward, but while Juno is in the inner solar system, Earth’s position on the sky shifts dramatically. Earth’s movement means that Juno cannot always use its HGA and benefit from its high data rate connection. For this reason, the spacecraft has a suite of antennas that allow communications with Earth from other angles, but at the cost of lower data rates, resulting in a reduction in Juno’s ability to transmit science data during that time. Juno’s science instruments will be powered on again shortly before the Earth flyby, slated for Oct. 9.

Juno’s mission ops team performed a flush of the spacecraft’s main engine on May 1, firing the engine for a couple of seconds. The team does this maintenance activity about once per year to flush contaminants from the propellant lines that feed the main engine.

Have a question about Juno or Jupiter not covered on this website? Visit the Juno mission website or email mission's outreach team.