Timeline Friday 5 August 2011

Events on Friday 5 August 2011 2

• 2011 US debt ceiling crisis and credit downgrade Standard & Poor's strips the United States of its AAA rating A prolonged political standoff over raising the U.S. federal debt ceiling was resolved just before a threatened default, but the brinkmanship led Standard & Poor's to downgrade the sovereign credit rating of the United States for the first time in history. Financial markets fell sharply in the following days. The episode intensified partisan gridlock over federal budget policy.
• 2011 Juno spacecraft launched to Jupiter NASA probe begins five-year journey to the solar system's largest planet NASA launched the Juno spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on a mission to study Jupiter's composition, gravity field, and magnetosphere. The solar-powered probe traveled nearly five years before entering Jupiter's orbit in 2016. It was the first spacecraft to operate on solar power at such a great distance from the sun.