Galileo Mission Status - April 17, 1997
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
The Galileo spacecraft is operating normally in its second week of "cruise" following the craft's latest encounter with Ganymede at 11:10pm Pacific Standard Time on April 4, with the signal received on the ground 46 minutes later. Galileo flew by the satellite at an altitude of 3,102 kilometers.
The fields and particles survey of Jupiter's magnetosphere continues. Other scheduled activities include one of the periodic spacecraft turns to keep the antenna pointed near Earth, and transmission of commands to prepare for next week's orbit adjustment.
This week's playback includes observations taken by the spacecraft during its non-targeted flyby of the increasingly- popular moon Europa. The playback includes a near-infrared mapping spectrometer (NIMS) observation at regional resolution, part of a plan to map all the Galilean satellites. Another spectrometer observation was designed to look for differences in the mineral composition of the Tyre Macula region, a circular feature. Return from other instruments will include thermal observations and images of crater features near the terminator, the dividing line between day and night.
The playback schedule also features the return of observations of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a smaller red spot, and a hot spot near the same latitude as the atmospheric probe entry site.
Galileo will return for another Ganymede flyby on May 7, with two Callisto encounters and another Europa flyby planned for the final orbits of Galileo's primary mission. A planned two- year continuation of the mission, known as the Galileo Europa Mission (GEM), will include eight more Europa flybys and one or two Io flybys, as long as the spacecraft remains healthy.
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