NASA's Juno spacecraft is readied for lifting out of a thermal vacuum chamber following testing to simulate the environment of space over the range of conditions the probe will encounter during its mission. When Juno reaches Jupiter in 2016, it will be farther from the sun than any previous solar-powered spacecraft.

This image was taken on March 13, 2011, at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver.

Juno aims to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute at San Antonio, Texas. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency in Rome is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about Juno, visit http://www.nasa.gov/juno.