NASA will today launch its high-tech spacecraft Juno to Jupiter, the biggest planet of the solar system. Juno is taking off on a five-year mission for a closer and a deeper study of the planet.

AS PART of its planetary science missions, NASA will launch its new high-tech spacecraft Juno to Jupiter today. The agency will be launching Grail to moon in September, which will be followed by Mars Science Laboratory in November.

Juno will get more close to Jupiter than any other of the spacecrafts launched by the US space agency so far. Within an hour after being launched the spacecraft will separate from the Centaur upper stage of its Atlas V rocket. It will take around five years to reach Jupiter.

After reaching its assigned destination in July 2016, Juno will orbit the poles of the planet, with the target set at 30 orbits in one year.

This is going to be the first time that a NASA spacecraft will orbit the poles of the planet.

Addressing a press conference last week, one of the principal scientists involved in this project said that Juno will study the working of the planet and its composition. The main focus will be to gauge the quantity of water in the planet and see whether it has a heavy element centre or is just made of air. The scientist noted that Juno is equipped with a series of high-tech instruments, some provided by European space agencies, to cover this mission.

Also, scientists are hoping to gather some information about the planet’s magnetic field and the Great Red Spot.