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The engineers and scientists working on NASA’s Juno mission have been busying themselves, getting their newly arrived Jupiter orbiter ready for operations around the largest planetary inhabitant in the solar system. 

NASA’s Juno mission has completed its main engine burn and entered orbit around Jupiter. Watch the live NASA news briefing at 10 p.m. PDT for more information. 

After almost five years and 1.7 billion miles (2.7 billion kilometers), NASA's Juno mission is about to enter into orbit around the biggest planetary inhabitant in our solar system – Jupiter.

After an almost five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53 pm. PDT Monday, July 4.

As of noon (Pacific time) on July 2, Juno was 1.79 million miles from Jupiter -- and closing. The solar-powered spacecraft will cross the orbit of the outermost Galilean moon, Callisto, on July 3 at about 11 a.m. PDT. The orbits of Ganymede, Europa and Io (the other Galilean moons) will be crossed on July 4 at about 4 a.m. PDT, 10:30 a.m. PDT and 2:15 p.m. PDT respectively. 

Juno spacecraft has entered the Jupiter's magnetosphere, where the movement of particles in space is controlled by what's going on inside the planet.

At about 12:15 pm PDT (3:15 p.m. EDT), mission controllers will transmit command product “ji4040” into deep space, to transition the solar-powered Juno spacecraft into autopilot.

Today (6/24), at exactly 9:57 and 48 seconds a.m. PDT, NASA's Juno spacecraft was 5.5 million miles (8.9 million kilometers) from its July 4th appointment with Jupiter. 

Well below the Jovian cloud tops is a layer of hydrogen under such incredible pressure it acts as an electrical conductor. Scientists believe that the combination of this metallic hydrogen along with Jupiter's fast rotation generates a powerful magnetic field that surrounds the planet with electrons, protons and ions traveling at nearly the speed of light. 

NASA will host a media briefing at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, June 16, to discuss the agency’s Juno spacecraft and its July 4th arrival at Jupiter.