Galileo Status Report
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-6478
One day and a million miles to go, NASA's Galileo spacecraft today is receiving commands to ready the spacecraft for Thursday's arrival at Jupiter.
"Basically, we're ready," said Jim Erickson, deputy manager of Galileo's science sequencing office. For the last three weeks and through Friday, the critical spacecraft operations relating to the probe mission and Jupiter orbit-entry are being directed by the so-called "critical sequence"of computer commands, Erickson said.
Additional commands are being sent from the Galileo control room at JPL via NASA's giant Deep Space Network antennas today to adjust the temperature control of Galileo's propellant tanks, kept just below room temperature, so the tanks will remain evenly pressured following the crucial 49-minute rocket firing that will brake the spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter tomorrow.
Galileo continues to operate smoothly during its final approach to the giant planet. Today, the spacecraft is about 1.7 million kilometers (1,070,000 million miles) from Jupiter and is moving at about 30,000 miles per hour relative to Jupiter and about 2,100 miles per hour relative to the Sun. The spacecraft is now 933,700,000 kilometers (580,000,000 miles) from Earth.