Galileo Status Report - September 16, 1996

PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. 
TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

GALILEO MISSION STATUS

September 16, 1996

Tape playback of data from last week's Galileo spacecraft flyby of Ganymede began as scheduled September 10 and is proceeding as planned. Transmission of images from the encounter, including many images of the volcanic moon Io, began last Friday and will continue over the next two months. The images of Io are part of an effort to spot erupting volcanoes on that moon.

The spacecraft is operating properly and executing commands as planned. Project engineers are running tests to diagnose an apparent anomaly that occurred early last week with the spacecraft radio receiver. On two occasions, the receiver failed to lock onto radio signals sent from Earth. The radio has since operated normally. One possible cause for the problem is radiation from Jupiter. A fully redundant radio receiver is on board the spacecraft in case the primary receiver ever experienced serious problems that could not be solved.

As anticipated based on Galileo's first flyby of Ganymede in June, the near infrared mapping spectrometer instrument experienced anomalous behavior in the five hours before perijove, or the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter September 7. As planned, the instrument's operating software was reloaded from storage in the spacecraft's central computer shortly after perijove. The instrument appears to have recovered and performed properly for the outbound observations.

The special sequence designed to use thermal distortion in an attempt to free the filter wheel on the photopolarimeter radiometer instrument was executed as planned last Tuesday but was unsuccessful. The photopolarimeter will be operated in its current position for the November 4 encounter of Callisto, performing radiometry only, project officials said. Additional attempts to free the wheel will probably be made after the flyby.

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