Galileo closes in on Jupiter.The Galileo spacecraft spacecraft Vehicle designed to operate, with or without a crew, in a controlled flight pattern above Earth's lower atmosphere. Since streamlining is not needed in the high vacuum of this environment, a spacecraft's shape is designed according to its mission (see passed a critical milestone late last month in the final leg of its 6-year voyage VOYAGE, marine law. The passage of a ship upon the seas, from one port to another, or to several ports. 2. Every voyage must have a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quem. to the solar system's biggest planet. On July 27, Galileo fired its main engine, setting course for a 2-year grand tour of Jupiter and its moons. The engine firing came 2 weeks after the craft released a probe that will parachute parachute, umbrellalike device designed to retard the descent of a falling body by creating drag as it passes through the air. The development of modern aircraft has led to many experiments in the aerodynamic problems of parachute design, with the result that the into Jupiter's atmosphere on December 7 (SN: 7/22/95, p.54). On the same day, Galileo will begin its Jovian tour, flying past the volcanically active moon Io. The mission now faces other hurdles. Plagued by a main communications antenna that never unfurled, Galileo must store data on tape instead of relaying it directly to Earth. Because the craft's secondary antenna transmits information more slowly, not all recorded observations will be transmitted. The craft will also make fewer observations than planned. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. scientists have already coped with these problems in retrieving data taken by Galileo en route to Jupiter. But the craft will lie considerably farther from Earth during its Jovian tour, making transmission more difficult. With the help of data compression data compression Process of reducing the amount of data needed for storage or transmission of a given piece of information (text, graphics, video, sound, etc.), typically by use of encoding techniques. , the space agency says, Galileo should accomplish 70 percent of its original mission. |
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