Galileo Mission Status - December 26, 1996

PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
     

Data from last week's successful flyby of Jupiter's moon Europa by NASA's Galileo spacecraft are being radioed back to Earth on schedule, project officials report.

"Everything is going normally on the spacecraft, and the return of the high-resolution images of Europa started on schedule yesterday," said Galileo Project Manager Bill O'Neil at JPL. Imaging data will be collected and processed over the coming days and weeks. Processing of the first of the images should be completed early in January and the images will be released shortly thereafter, O'Neil said.

Galileo flew past Europa at an altitude of only 692 kilometers (about 430 miles) from Europa on December 19 at 0653 Universal Time (December 18 at 10:53 p.m. Pacific Standard Time). Galileo flew more than 200 times closer to Europa than the Voyager spacecraft came to that moon in 1979.

Europa is especially intriguing because scientists believe it may have an ocean beneath its icy crust.

Throughout last week, Galileo made scientific observations of Europa and the other satellites, and gathered data on Jupiter and its magnetosphere through December 22. The observations included the closeup images, nighttime and daytime temperature measurements, searches for auroral activity, the magnetic field, atmospheric studies and investigations of the charged-particle environment in Europa's vicinity. Playback of data stored on Galileo's tape recorder will continue through mid-February, concluding just before Galileo's next Europa encounter.

The next Europa flyby will be even closer at an altitude of a mere 587 kilometers (364 miles) on February 19. The spacecraft's third flyby of Europa will occur on November 6, 1997, at an altitude of 1,125 kilometers (699 miles).

JPL manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.

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