Today on Galileo - September 19-20, 1997
The last day and a half of this encounter period brings no real decrease in activity as has been typical of previous encounters. The observing schedule during this period is varied in nature with Galileo looking at Io, Europa, Thebe and Jupiter. Back here on Earth, the flight team prepares for the start of the cruise period and playback. The cruise set of commands is transmitted to the spacecraft on Friday. The commands for the first orbit trim maneuver after the Callisto flyby are transmitted to the spacecraft on Saturday morning. This orbit trim maneuver provides navigators with the opportunity to correct any errors in the spacecraft's path accumulated during the encounter period.
An observation of Thebe performed by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) camera is followed closely by a spacecraft turn. This turn is performed to provide a high solar phase angle view of Jupiter. The turn is followed by observations of the north pole region performed by the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS). Interspersed with these observations are observations of Io and a series of thermal maps of Jupiter, both also performed by NIMS.
Global observations of Europa performed by SSI follow on the observing schedule and these in turn are followed by part 2 of the global observation of Io initiated yesterday by SSI. NIMS and Photopolarimeter Radiometer (PPR) also look at Io while searching for changes in the thermal and surface properties of the satellite.
Most of the afternoon is spent looking at Jupiter. PPR performs a few regional maps, while NIMS looks again at the north and south poles for aurora and haze cloud signatures. SSI also images the north pole in search of aurora. SSI's global observation of Io is completed in the afternoon and is followed by observations performed by NIMS, Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) and PPR. Saturday morning sees NIMS taking a final look at Jupiter's north pole region and UVS takes a final look at the Io torus.
The cruise set of commands begins to execute at 8 am Pacific Daylight Time when the spacecraft is scheduled to...... come back on Monday, September 22 to find out when This Week on Galileo returns to this website!