If everything goes according to plan, they will be launched inside their spacecraft on top of an Atlas V rocket now at Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on August 5, 11:34 a.m. EDT. They will reach orbit in 11 minutes and, “about 30 minutes later, the Atlas rocket’s second stage will perform a second, nine-minute burn, after which Juno will be on its five-year journey to the largest planet in the solar system.”
With them, they are bringing a plaque dedicated to Galileo and a bunch of instruments to study the planet like never before “from an elliptical, polar orbit. Juno will repeatedly dive between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming only 5000km from the cloud tops at closest approach.”
Godspeed Lego minifigs. I hope you are wearing lead underpants. [NASA]
huu
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:20 PMI Thought the cost of bringing anything into orbit is about the same as its weight in gold. And they (NASA) are complaining not enough funding *shake head* no wonder USA got to raise that 14 trillion debt ceiling.
Dave
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 2:21 PMSo less than $1000 using your weight-in-gold approximation? Lego provided the minifigs so there’s no extra costs either. Yep, that’ll put a huge dent in the $1.1B budget that Juno has…
huu
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 5:44 PMYep $1000 x the number of people that think like you = 14 trillions in debt. Anyway i tend to agree with Ling Ling – may be part of the funding came from Lego so it not the cost to the tax payer.
Sean Robert Meaney
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 7:00 PMI dont know what you are complaining about. I’m quite prepared to borrow the 2 billion-billion (2 followed by 18 zeros) dollars from the USA as a national debt and contract the USA to colonize the Lunar and Martian States over the next hundred years. In that colossal loan is a research budget.
You either want to build the next civilization in space or you dont. Apparently the US government and its citizens dont.
olearymo
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 8:52 AMLet me tell ya, that 14 trillion debt ceiling is NOT from NASA.
Let me give you a clue:
ratatatatat kaboooooom
Nathan
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:47 PM‘the goddess Juno and his husband, Jupiter’
subtle gay marriage protest?
Shane
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:57 PMI want some!!
Ling Ling
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 2:00 PM@huu
Perhaps the funding for three Lego pieces worth of gold came from Lego, quite a marketing stunt.
redartifice
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 3:00 PMCaption is wrong- the figure on the right is Galileo, the one on the left is Jupiter (you can tell because he’s holding a lightning bolt)
Arnie
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:31 PMSadly enough NASA’s budget(~18 US$ billion 2010)while it may seem a lot, is peanuts in comparison to the military budget(~ US$663 billion 2010).
20-50% of NASA’s budget ~US$18 billion in 2012 (notice no change from 2010), will be funded by military projects, the 2012 military budget for 2012 is estimated to be ~US$1 trillion – US$1.4 trillion.
olearymo
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 11:31 AM+1
Shane Kerr
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 1:22 PMAnd when the world is overrun by Shariah law wielding Jihadis shouting “allhu akbar”, what do you think the budget for space exploration will be then?
olearymo
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 4:22 PMaaahahaha… lo… oh. wait, you’re serious?
Wow.