This Week on Galileo July 2-8, 2001
This holiday week sees the Galileo spacecraft continue its normal cruise
activities. On Monday, an attitude maintenance turn is performed to keep
the spacecraft’s communications antenna pointed at the Earth. On Thursday,
a standard test of the on-board gyroscopes is performed. Due to repeated
dosages of the intense radiation near Jupiter, some of the electronic
components used to report data from the gyros have degraded. These periodic
tests check the current health of the electronics, and also determine if
updates are needed to software parameters used by the spacecraft’s
computers to correct the measurements from the gyros.
On Sunday, we take the final step in a series of reconfigurations of the
radio communications parameters during the recent period of solar
conjunction, when Galileo appeared to pass behind the Sun as seen from
Earth. In this final step, as Galileo and Jupiter continue to move away
from the Sun (as seen from Earth), the spacecraft returns to its normal
configuration for telemetry.
The Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EUV) instrument continues its
two-month-long study of the interplanetary medium. Playback of data stored
on the tape recorder from the May flyby of Callisto also continues. This
week will see the conclusion of our first survey pass through the Solid
State Imaging (SSI) pictures on the tape, and the beginning of the second
pass, including data from the other instruments. Expected SSI data include
global color pictures of Callisto and pictures of hot spots in the
atmosphere of Jupiter. The Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) will
return measurements of Io taken while that satellite was in Jupiter’s
shadow, as well as additional global coverage of that volcanic moon. The
Photopolarimeter Radiometer instrument (PPR) will return data from global
observations of Io and measurements of a white oval in Jupiter’s atmosphere.
For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL’s:
