The spacecraft is scheduled to crash land on Jupiter in September 2003
Avi Blizovsky
Direct link to this article: https://www.hayadan.org.il/galileo091102.html
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory teams are trying to bring the Galileo spacecraft back to life, orbiting Jupiter after it went into safe mode.
Mission technicians plan to transmit commands to the spacecraft in the coming days to begin analyzing the state of the systems on board Galileo, and slowly bring it back to life from hibernation.
"It will be necessary to do this in stages," says Guy Webster, spokesman for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the project. The activity began on Friday and it is estimated that it will not end until Wednesday.
Galileo automatically turned off its instruments when exposed to high levels of radiation. This is a reflexive response called "safe mode" and its purpose is to protect the sensitive electronics.
The spacecraft, the size of a bus, survived four times stronger radiation than it was designed for during its seven-year mission in the Tzedek region.
It entered a safe mode during previous dives into the radioactive environment near the king of the planets.
Galileo was decommissioned at the end of its long mission to Jupiter * closely studied the moon Amalthea
7/11/2002
In recent days, NASA's old spacecraft, Galileo, made its last flyby near a body in the Jupiter system - the moon Amalthea, and it was put into standby mode on Tuesday this week. If they fail to revive it, this is the end of a mission that lasted 13 years (including the flight time from Earth to Jupiter ).
The spacecraft collected data from its pass over Amalthea, said Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. So far, no other details about that flyby have been released.
The strong radiation near Jupiter has caused malfunctions in the spacecraft's software in the past and it has switched to a safe mode - which means that the spacecraft cannot transmit data. In this mode the spacecraft shuts down non-essential activities to protect the instruments until they are instructed otherwise by the control center.
The spacecraft was already in standby mode on previous occasions when it approached Jupiter. In each of the cases, one of the operators could return the spacecraft to full operation by sending a control code.
Galileo approached to a height of 155 km from the face of the planet and an hour later came within seventy thousand km of Jupiter - its shortest distance so far to the giant planet. The spacecraft has approached Jupiter's moons 30 times, including several times to Io and Europa, but so far It did not approach Amalthea - one of the closest moons to Jupiter. Galileo's instruments were programmed to measure its field Amalthea's attraction, and this could help scientists calculate the moon's mass and density, and get clues about its chemical composition. No photographs were planned for this mission.
These measurements are to be the last before Galileo crashes into Jupiter as planned in September 2003 after its 35th and final orbit around the planet. Even if the control personnel cannot regain control of the spacecraft for some reason, it is planned to crash on Jupiter.
This crushing will prevent Galileo from falling on the moon Europa and its possible contamination with terrestrial bacteria. The icy surface of Europa may, according to scientists, contain a salty ocean beneath it that may be home to extraterrestrial life.
A total of 1.4 billion dollars were invested in the Galileo project. The spacecraft was launched in 1989 and arrived at Jupiter in December 1995.
To Galileo's page (NASA website)
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