This Week on Galileo
April 27-May 2, 1999
During this week, Galileo will complete the return of science data acquired during the spacecraft's February flyby of Europa. Early next week, the spacecraft will perform a close flyby of another of Jupiter's moons, Callisto. This is the first of four flybys of Callisto designed to change the spacecraft's orbit to allow for a close flyby of Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system!
Science data return is interrupted several times this week to perform engineering and navigation activities required to prepare for next week's flyby activities. On Tuesday, the spacecraft performs regular maintenance on its propulsion systems. On Wednesday, it performs a standard gyroscope performance test. Finally, on Sunday, the spacecraft performs regular maintenance on its tape recorder and also executes a small flight path correction.
In this week's playback plans, the spacecraft continues with a second pass through the data stored on the tape recorder. This second opportunity to read data from the tape allows data lost in transmission to Earth to be replayed, or for different parameters to be used in onboard processing, or to simply return additional new data. During the week, the Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer returns observations of Jupiter's Northern Temperate Belt, and of crystalline forms of water ice on Europa. The Photopolarimeter Radiometer returns observations of the texture and composition of Europa's surface. The spacecraft camera, or Solid-State Imaging subsystem, returns observations of several features on Europa's surface: the Tegid crater, mottled terrain, north polar regions, Rhadamanthes Linea and a set of frames designed to search for volcanic plumes. Finally, the Fields and Particles instruments continue to return data from an observation of the interaction between Europa and Jupiter's magnetosphere.
Come back next week for the return of Today on Galileo and the Callisto-Orbit 20 encounter!
For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page.
Return to Project Galileo Homepage
| Comments and suggestions about this website may be directed to gllbug@jplpio.jpl.nasa.gov Last updated: April 26, 1999 |
 |