Rick Nybakken, the project manager for NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, tore up his copy of the space agency’s contingency communications procedure — the plan for if the mission failed. “Tonight, through tones, Juno sang to us, and it was a song of perfection,” Nybakken said at a briefing. After traveling through the solar system for nearly five years, Juno began orbiting Jupiter at 8:53 p.m. Pacific time, a mere one-second deviation from its intended schedule. On Monday night, Juno fired its engine for 35 minutes and eased itself into orbit around Jupiter. Scientists and engineers gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory followed the spacecraft's progress, listening for the tones that would tell them everything was on track.

Source: Los Angeles Times July 05, 2016 01:07 UTC