Galileo Project

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Galileo Project
Launch October 1989 Arrive December
1995 Crashes into Jupiter September 21, 2003
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• The Galileo spacecraft and its Inertial Upper
  Stage booster rocket were deployed from the space
  shuttle Atlantis October 18, 1989.
• Shortly thereafter, the booster rocket fired and
  separated, sending Galileo on its six-year
  journey to the planet Jupiter.

• Upon its arrival at Jupiter in December 1995,
  Galileo released a probe into the atmosphere that
  gathered data on the composition of the planet's
  clouds.
• The orbiter relayed probe information back to
  Earth and surveyed and photographed Jupiter and
  some of its major satellites.

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• Galileo's mission was to study Jupiter and its
  moons in more detail than any previous
  spacecraft.
• The spacecraft is named in honor of the first
  modern astronomer --- Galileo Galilei. He made
  the first observations of the heavens using a
  telescope in 1610.

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This picture of Antarctica is a mosaic of 40
images obtained by the Galileo spacecraft's
camera using the red, green, and violet filters.
When the images were taken several hours after
Galileo's first Earth flyby on December 8, 1990,
the spacecraft was about 200,000 kilometers
(124,000 miles) from Earth.
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View of Australia from Galileo
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Eight days after its second encounter with the
Earth, the Galileo spacecraft was able to look
back and capture this remarkable view of the Moon
in orbit about the Earth, taken from a distance
of about 6.2 million kilometers (3.9 million
miles), on December 16, 1992.
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These four images of the Moon are from data
acquired by the Galileo spacecraft's
Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer during
Galileo's December 1992 Earth/Moon flyby.
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This is the orbital tour that Galileo took while
at Jupiter
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This is an image of Jupiters atmosphere imaged
by Galileo. Each pixel is 35.7 km squared.
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The great red spot on Jupiter is a huge storm
made visible by variations in the composition of
the cloud particles. The Red Spot is not unique,
but is simply the largest of a class of
long-lived vortices, some of which are visible in
the lower part of the image.
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In 1994, Galileo was perfectly positioned to
watch the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
crash into Jupiter.
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A portion of a chain of impact craters on
Jupiter's moon Callisto is seen in this image
taken by the Galileo spacecraft on November 4,
1996. This crater chain on Callisto is believed
to result from the impact of a split object,
similar to the fragments of Comet Shoemaker- Levy
9 which smashed into Jupiter's atmosphere in July
of 1994.
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The cone-shaped Galileo probe entered the
atmosphere of Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995, at a speed
of over 106,000 mph and survived deceleration
forces of 228 times Earth's gravity. After
deploying a parachute, it relayed data to the
Galileo orbiter spacecraft overhead for 57
minutes.
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It appeared that Jupiter's atmosphere is drier
than thought. Measurements from the probe showed
few clouds, and lightning only in the distance.
It was only later that it was discovered that the
probe had entered an area called a "hot spot."
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It appeared that Jupiter's atmosphere was drier
than thought. Measurements from the probe showed
few clouds, and lightning only in the distance.
It was only later that it was discovered that the
probe had entered an area called a "hot spot."
Towards the end of the descent, the probe
measured winds of 450 miles per hour - stronger
than anything on Earth. The probe was finally
melted and vaporized by the intense heat of the
atmosphere.
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Whats in store for Galileo?
Galileo will crash into Jupiter on September 21,
2003, ending its 14 year mission.
Where is Galileo now?
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In the Future
The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter is an ambitious
proposed mission to orbit three planet-sized
moons of Jupiter -- Callisto, Ganymede and Europa
-- which may harbor vast oceans beneath their icy
surfaces. The mission would launch in 2012 or
later.
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The Jupiter Icy Moons Mission could shed light on
Europa, a mysterious moon of Jupiter.