SAN ANTONIO – The people behind the Juno Jupiter satellite are now home in San Antonio from California after a successful mission.
It’s been called "the hardest thing NASA has ever done." The project is led by the Southwest Research Institute on the city’s Northwest Side.
After five years of travel, the payoff was in Pasadena, where mission control gave the command that Juno had entered orbit around Jupiter.
The team in San Antonio is already pouring over the new data on the largest planet in the solar system, but the excitement is still fresh.
As Juno entered orbit just before midnight on the Fourth of July, celebrations sparked inside the rooms of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"As the moment approached, you could just feel the tension in the room. It was actually amazing," said Rob Ebert, SW Research Institute scientist.
Ebert said that elation filled the auditorium he was in. It's a moment that roughly 20 San Antonio scientists lived. The entire five-day trip was memorable.
The day before Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 3, the entire project team gathered on the field of the Rose Bowl for a photo. Painted right in center field was a scale model of the spacecraft. It was the first time the entire team had seen one.
"We proceeded to play football on the Rose Bowl Field for another half-hour after that, so I was able to catch a touch down on the Rose Bowl after getting my picture taken with the spacecraft. That was awesome," Ebert said.
The scientists shared unbridled enthusiasm as they used the information to unlock the secrets of the strongest magnetic field in the solar system.
"Basically, (it’s) the most spectacular aurora you find in our solar system," Ebert said, referencing Earth's Northern Lights.
The information came from one of two instruments the scientists designed in San Antonio. One instrument, called “JADE,” measures ions and electrons.
"It's like we're going fishing for ions and electrons at Jupiter," Ebert said.
The research should help scientists understand Earth’s own magnetosphere better.
"It can actually knock out the power of satellites, disrupt their GPS and actually harm astronauts,” Ebert said.
The scientists’ other goals are to find where the Jupiter, the gas giant, comes from, what's inside of it and what surrounds it. The Juno satellite will circle Jupiter for at least 20 months.
"We haven't determined if there are aliens yet, but we'll keep looking. What we find is that first of all, the data that we're getting back is phenomenal, and there is going to be a lot of great science that comes out of it, and just telling us that the system is really dynamic and we are really excited to dig into it," Ebert said.