Here's something that might make you feel a little bit better about the world. NASA just successfully launched the Juno spacecraft, a solar-powered vehicle which will reach Jupiter five years from now. And NASA used an Atlas V rocket to do so. That's right — a former ICBM is being used to carry a peaceful scientific mission.


Update: Keith Cowing with NASA Watch informs us that the Atlas V rocket is not actually "a former ICBM." He writes:

It is a rocket designed from scratch in the 1990s. Atlas V was never designed to launch warheads. It was designed to launch satellites. It is an EELV - Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. It bears the same resemblance to the 1950's Atlas ICBM as today's VW beetle has to the car Hitler first made in the 1940s i.e. a name and a shape.

The Juno spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 30 times, to find out more about the planet. Juno will:



[NASA, thanks for the reminder Rachel Chalmers!]