This Week on Galileo - December 2-8, 1996
This week Galileo continues with return of data from the Callisto encounter and preparations for its upcoming encounter with Europa. Throughout the week, Galileo will resume the return of optical navigation images of the Jupiter system. These images are used by the navigators to figure out if Galileo is on the correct path for its next encounter, and, if needed, prepare the final orbit trim maneuver prior to encounter.
If you are a frequent reader of This Week on Galileo, you would notice that this week's playback contains many observations that were reported as having been played back on previous This Weeks. What we failed to mention of those previous playback opportunities is that many of the observations were only being partially returned. This was done to allow playback planners to better select what compression scheme or ratio to play it back at. Having previewed how these observations compressed under the selected parameters, planners were able to optimize the data return parameters.
So, what observations were previewed? The plans for this week contain the return of the Callisto high resolution observations, Jupiter atmosphere belts/storms interaction zones, Jupiter north pole and northern auroral regions and selected Io observations.