Reaching Jupiter was 'the hardest thing NASA's ever done' - these images show just how treacherous it was

Meghan BartelsJul 5, 2016, 22:48 IST

The Juno team celebrates at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, after receiving data indicating that NASA's Juno mission entered orbit around Jupiter. Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at JPL, is seen at the center hugging JPL's acting director for solar system exploration, Richard Cook.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Late Monday evening, while many Americans were busy watching fireworks, NASA scored an incredible victory. It successfully maneuvered a spacecraft called Juno into orbit around Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

Scott Bolton, the project's principal investigator, called it "the hardest thing NASA's ever done."

To make Juno a success, NASA has had to engineer solutions to a range of problems they've never faced before. Here's a tour of all the challenges NASA has already beaten and what's left for Juno to tackle.

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Reaching Jupiter was 'the hardest thing NASA's ever done' - these images show just how treacherous it was