Galileo Europa Mission Status - September 25, 1998
MEDIA RELATIONS 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 tape recorder aboard the Galileo spacecraft has begun recording early observations of its latest Europa encounter. The closest approach of this flyby will take place tonight at 8:54 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, when Galileo will fly about 3,582 kilometers (2,226 miles) above the icy moon's surface.
A flight path correction was made on Tuesday, September 22, and preliminary data indicate the spacecraft is right on target. Regular tape recorder maintenance was performed yesterday.
Late last night, a fault protection program was activated when the spacecraft's gyroscopes acted abnormally, temporarily taking the gyros out of action. The current Europa flyby is proceeding, however, with the spacecraft's star scanner as the primary reference for determining Galileo's orientation in space. The spacecraft will continue to execute its planned slate of observations, which includes taking images of Europa's surface. The primary impact will be on the quality of observations taken by the near infrared mapping spectrometer.
Galileo project engineers are currently investigating the gyro anomaly, trying to determine the source of the fault.
The Galileo Europa Mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Return to Project Galileo Homepage