Galileo Mission Status: October 30, 1996

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GALILEO MISSION STATUS
October 30, 1996

Galileo Mission Status: October 30, 1996

The last of the data from the Galileo spacecraft's September encounter with Jupiter's moon Ganymede were due to be played back from the spacecraft's tape recorder by October 28th or 29th, project officials reported.

In the remaining hours of the playback from the last flyby, preparations continued for Galileo's next encounter - the Jovian moon Callisto - which takes place Monday, November 4 at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (1:30 p.m.GMT).

The flight team has reported successful optical navigation imaging of Callisto and target stars in recent days. Ten images were shuttered and eight were successfully received last week. The spacecraft is on track for its 1,104 kilometer (686-mile) flyby of Callisto, so much so that the project has canceled the work that would have been needed to generate command sequence products for an orbit-trim maneuver. However an option still exists to execute an orbit trim maneuver later this week if the latest possible tracking data show that an adjustment is desirable.

Callisto is the outermost and, apparently, least active of Jupiter's four major Galilean satellites. It has the oldest, most cratered face of any body yet observed in the solar system. Like Ganymede, it seems to have a rocky core surrounded by ice. The surface is covered completely with meteoric impact craters. Although the exact rate of impact crater formation is not known, scientists estimate that it would require several billion years to accumulate the number of craters found on Callisto. Therefore, the moon is believed to have been inactive at least that long. Data from this Callisto flyby and another one in June next year should help resolve questions about why this seemingly inactive, crater-studded moon is so different from its vastly more active siblings - Europa, Ganymede and Io.

Galileo's ground data system team is making final preparations to use a new array of multiple antennas on separate continents that have been electronically linked together to receive data from Galileo. Use of the array for Galileo operations begins November 1. The telecommunications array links the receiving power of the three largest antennas (one 70-meter and two 34-meter antennas) at the Australian Deep Space Network communications complex in Tidbinbilla, near Canberra, along with the large Parkes radio telescope located about 100 miles from the Tidbinbilla site. It also links the 70-meter antenna at Goldstone during periods when both Goldstone and Canberra are able to "see" the Galileo spacecraft at the same time. The arraying technique allows more of the spacecraft's weak signal to be captured, thereby enabling a higher data rate, which translates into the receipt of more data.

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