Nasa’s Juno spacecraft to Jupiter has become the most distant solar-powered explorer when it reached 793 million kilometres from the Sun.
The distance between the spacecraft and the Sun broke the previous record of its kind made by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft.
In October 2012, Rosetta orbited 792 million kilometres from the Sun during its approach to the 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet.
San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton said: "Juno is all about pushing the edge of technology to help us learn about our origins.
"We use every known technique to see through Jupiter’s clouds and reveal the secrets Jupiter holds of our solar system’s early history.
"It just seems right that the Sun is helping us learn about the origin of Jupiter and the other planets that orbit it.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalData"It is cool we got the record and that our dedicated team of engineers and scientists can chalk up another first in space exploration.
"But the best is yet to come. We are achieving these records and venturing so far out for a reason, to better understand the biggest world in our solar system and thereby better understand where we came from."
The first solar-powered spacecraft built to operate farther from the sun, Juno, was launched in 2011.
The 4t spacecraft carries three 30ft long solar arrays, which are equipped with 18,698 different solar cells that can generate 14KW of electricity at the Earth’s distance from the Sun.
Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory Juno project manager Rick Nybakken said: "Jupiter is five times farther from the Sun than Earth, and the sunlight that reaches that far out packs 25 times less punch.
"While our massive solar arrays will be generating only 500 watts when we are at Jupiter, Juno is very efficiently designed, and it will be more than enough to get the job done."
Besides Juno, eight spacecraft have travelled into the cold, harsh and poorly lit deep space environment that are as distant as Jupiter. However, they used nuclear power sources.
During the period of its 16-month mission, Juno will come at a maximum distance of 832 million kilometres from the Sun.
On 4 July, Juno is expected to reach Jupiter and study its aurorae to know more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Juno mission for the Southwest Research Institute.
Image: Juno will arrive at Jupiter in 2016 to study the giant planet from an elliptical, polar orbit. Photo: courtesy of Nasa / JPL-Caltech.
