Galileo Status Report
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
The Galileo spacecraft, now in orbit around Jupiter, finished delivering the first round of data from its atmospheric probe on Wednesday. Collected during the probe's one-hour plunge through Jupiter's clouds on Dec.7, the data represent the first direct measurement of an atmosphere of an outer planet.
Galileo Project Scientist Dr. Torrence Johnson and Probe Scientist Dr. Rich Young confirmed that all the instruments seem to have worked properly and provided data during the probe's brief descent mission. The probe sent data to the Galileo orbiter for 57 minutes during its descent.
Transmission of probe data to Earth has now been temporarily suspended as planned, because Jupiter is passing behind the Sun as seen from Earth and the communications link between the Galileo orbiter and Earth has, as expected, become very noisy. The spacecraft is currently more than 940 million kilometers (584 million miles) from Earth. Data transmission will resume in January, when Jupiter and the Earth move out of this alignment.
Scientists are continuing to analyze the data in preparation for a briefing on the initial probe science results scheduled for 10 a.m. PST on Tuesday, Dec. 19, at NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA.