NASA has selected a Jupiter polar orbiter to proceed into preliminary design as its second New Frontiers mission. Juno will be ready for launch by mid-2010 within a cost cap of $700 million. If confirmed for development, Lockheed Martin will build the spacecraft with Southwest Research Institute as principal investigator and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as mission manager. Orbiting Jupiter, Juno will look for an ice-rock core, measure atmospheric water and ammonia, study convection and wind profiles and explore the magnetosphere. The first New Frontiers mission will fly by the Pluto-Charon system and into the Kuiper belt in 2014.
Source: Flight International
