NASA Selects Launch Services Provider for Juno Jupiter Mission

NASA's Launch Services Program office at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., has selected Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services of Littleton, Colo., for the Juno mission to Jupiter.

The $190 million contract award is a competed firm-fixed-price task order. It includes the launch service for an Atlas V model 551 rocket, payload processing, launch vehicle integration, and the necessary tracking, data and telemetry support. The spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., in August 2011 on an interplanetary trajectory to Jupiter.

Juno will arrive at Jupiter in August 2016 to uncover the secrets hidden beneath the planet's thick, colorful clouds. Juno's remote sensing and gravity science measurements will characterize Jupiter's interior, atmosphere and polar magnetosphere with the primary science goal of understanding the planet's origin and evolution. A principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio leads the Juno mission.

For more information about the Juno mission, visit:

http://juno.nasa.gov

Source: NASA

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com