The spacecraft was plagued by launch delays, a useless central antenna, a temperamental recording device, and criticism that it was a costly failure. However, in the end it became a success story. She made unexpected discoveries that changed some long-held beliefs about our solar system and even about the origin of life.
Galileo - a space success story
By Avi Blizovsky
The curtain came down on a historic chapter in the history of solar system exploration when the Galileo spacecraft crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere.
The spacecraft launched a huge amount of data. Among other things, the mighty volcanoes of Io and the hidden oceans of Europa were completely mysterious until the Galileo spacecraft reached Jupiter. It flew close to the planet's icy moons, discovered by astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610.
The spacecraft has traveled about 5 billion kilometers since its launch, but today, after 14 years of discoveries, it crashed into the largest planet in the solar system. It burned up leaving a large trail of fire as it entered Jupiter's atmosphere. The mission is considered a landmark in the history of space exploration and the scientists are sorry to see it come to an end.
Planet Jupiter - Facts - It is the fifth planet from the sun, the largest world in the solar system. It can hold 1,300 Earths, but has an extremely small rocky core.
"It's sad to see the end but if the spacecraft had not died in the storm, it would have died slowly," said Fred Taylor, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, who worked on the project for 30 years.
Galileo gave the first real insight into Jupiter as a planet, he said, with its constant storms and complex cloud system.
Galileo, running low on fuel and on the brink of electrical power, managed to keep its 1.4 instruments running until the final hours, and may allow scientists to squeeze some last data from the $XNUMX billion spacecraft.
Remember, NASA mapped out the crash path to prevent Galileo—a One Sport-sized hunk of metal, plutonium, and gadgets—from crashing into Jupiter's large moons, assuming they were some of the most promising places to look for extraterrestrial life.
"Galileo is one of the most successful missions ever launched from Earth," said Colin Hartman, NASA's Director of Solar System Exploration. "This spacecraft gave us unbelievable discoveries."
Like any human child, Galileo also had puberty problems, she did not follow instructions from the authorities and did not behave as expected. However, after negotiations, trial and error, she found her way, and even opened an unacceptable way for communication. Then she also began to provide some amazing insights, enough to amaze even those who thought it was a lost case.
The spacecraft was plagued by launch delays, a useless central antenna, a temperamental recording device, and criticism that it was a costly failure. However, in the end it became a success story. She made unexpected discoveries that changed some long-held beliefs about our solar system and even about the origin of life.
"It's almost like you have a troubled kid who ends up being a top law school graduate," said Claudia Alexander, the most recent director of Project Galileo at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Saturn - next in line
The scientists are still sifting through the sea of treasures of the new data about the fifth planet that will provide them with surprises for many years to come. "The spacecraft had a good mission. It left us with an atlas of all the small moons of Jupiter," said Tony McDonnell, Professor of Planetary Sciences at the UK's Open University.
"Galileo was one of NASA's Rolls-Royces," he said. "A fleet of large, expensive spacecraft developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California."
The last spacecraft of this generation is Cassini, Galileo's sister. Cassini, which also carries the European Huygens lander, is on its way to Jupiter's neighbor, the ring giant Saturn and its moon Titan. Next July, Cassini will begin a four-year journey of Saturn and its moons, opening a new chapter in the study of this outer planet. One can only hope that just as the Galileo mission was extended several times, so will Cassini.
NASA ordered the Galileo spacecraft to crash land on Jupiter
By Yuval Dror
Galileo before launch. met about 70% of her tasks. Photo: NASA
Yesterday (Sunday) late at night, the control center of NASA in the USA ordered the Galileo spacecraft to go on its last journey towards the surface of the planet Jupiter, 14 years after it was launched, with the aim of destroying it. The spacecraft, whose journey around Jupiter has been extended time and time again due to its excellent performance, over the years traveled an enormous trajectory of 4,631,788,800 km before it was ordered to crash into Jupiter at a speed of almost 50 kilometers per second. According to estimates, all Galileo's systems will further vaporize during the phase of entry into the planet's atmosphere.
The purpose of the crash program is to prevent the possibility of the spacecraft crashing on Jupiter's moon, Europa. NASA fears that in such a case, bacteria from Earth that survived the long journey could contaminate the natural environment of the moon, which is considered the place with the best chances for life to develop in the solar system.
Galileo, which was launched on October 18, 1989 on the back of the space shuttle "Atlantis", has been orbiting Jupiter since December 1995 and has since completed 35 orbits around the giant planet. The spacecraft was designed to survive at least two years around Jupiter but survived for eight years. It transferred to Earth four times more information than planned: about 30 gigabytes of information, which includes, among other things, about 14 thousand pictures. "It's been a great mission for the scientists who study the planets and it's hard for us to see it end," said Galileo Project Manager Claudia Alexander. The scientists will check whether, even in its last minutes, Galileo was able to transmit information about Jupiter's atmosphere.
The last mission of "Galileo": to crash on the planet Jupiter
21/9/03
By Yuval Dror
The route is designed to prevent the spacecraft from crashing on the moon "Europa" and contaminating its natural environment with bacteria from Earth
This Sunday, at 22:49 (Israel time), the "Galileo" spacecraft will crash into the planet Jupiter at a speed of 174 thousand km/h. This is not an accident, but a carefully planned step aimed at preventing the possibility of Galileo crashing on Jupiter's moon, "Europa". If the spacecraft crashes on "Europa", bacteria from Earth that survived the long journey could contaminate the natural environment of the moon - which is considered the place with the best chances in the solar system for the development of life.
The spacecraft was named after Galileo Galilei, the renowned astronomer who in 1610 discovered four moons around Jupiter using a telescope he built. The Galileo spacecraft was launched on the space shuttle "Atlantis" on October 18, 1989 after seven years of delays. Six years later she came to justice.
In 1991, when Galileo approached the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, NASA decided to pull out a closed antenna that was supposed to send pictures to Earth at a rate of 134 kilobits per minute - a picture every minute. The umbrella-like antenna was not retractable.
NASA immediately understood the significance of the malfunction: if the large antenna is not working and only the secondary antenna is working, it will be possible to send images at a rate of 10 bits per minute - or one image per month. After long weeks of anxiety, the solution was found. The mission managers decided to load the spacecraft's computer with new software, which would enable the compression of the information received from the secondary antenna. Years passed until the software was loaded onto the computer. After that, it turned out that she was able to send about 200 photos a month. Although this rate was lower than planned, it saved the mission from abject failure.
During her journey and since arriving at Jupiter in December 1995, Galileo recorded quite a few achievements. Among other things, its images revealed many moons orbiting Jupiter, which were too small to be seen from Earth. According to the current estimate, Jupiter has no less than 61 moons. In addition, the spacecraft photographed several asteroids - as well as the comet Schumacher-Levy - 9 and discovered that there was a full moon around one of the asteroids.
When Galileo approached Jupiter, it released a "tracer" that approached the star's atmosphere and for a long time sent important data about its chemical structure, winds, radiation and natural environment.
In 1996, the spacecraft transmitted the images, which later sealed its fate. These are pictures of the moon "Europa", which led the scientists to the conclusion that under the ice cover that covers it, there is water. These findings led to a fierce debate surrounding the question of whether life developed in the water. It was these images that convinced scientists to crash Galileo on Jupiter, fearing that the 1,300 kilogram spacecraft would crash into the moon Europa.
NASA says that Galileo managed to meet about 70% of its missions. She orbited Tzedek 35 times compared to the 11 orbits planned for her; It absorbed a radiation rate four times higher than they thought it would be able to absorb, and sent thousands of fascinating images to Earth. On Sunday, when it meets Jupiter's atmosphere at a speed of 50 kilometers per second, its 58 components will burn up at a temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius - leaving no evidence that they originated on Earth.
When Galileo crashed on Jupiter
"Galileo" exceeded all the expectations of NASA researchers * Yesterday the spacecraft crashed on the planet it had been photographing for years
Alex Doron and A.P. Maariv, 22/9/03
Just in time, without incident, Galileo, NASA's aging spacecraft, plunged into the stormy atmosphere of the planet Jupiter (Jupiter). This brought to a fiery end a 14-year journey to explore the largest planet in the solar system.
The unmanned spacecraft, traveling at 173,770 km/h, was torn apart and vaporized by abrasion and heat as it entered the atmosphere last Sunday at 19:57 GMT, just as planned.
Far away on Earth, in a laboratory in Pasadena, California, 800 engineers, scientists and their families counted the seconds as the spacecraft completed its journey to a distance of 4.5
5 billion kilometers from Earth.
For the hundreds of engineers and scientists who worked on "Galileo" from the beginning of the project until the crash of the spacecraft, it was a sad-sweet moment. "We didn't lose a spacecraft, we gained another milestone in research," said Torrance Johnson, the project's chief scientist.
"A spectacular end to a spectacular mission," is how Rosalie Lopez, another scientist in the project, defined the sunset of Galileo. ''Personally, I'm a little sad,'' Lopez added. "I had great fun with 'Galileo' and it's a little sad to say goodbye to an old friend."
Despite the mishaps that have clouded the project since the spacecraft was launched in 89 from the space shuttle Atlantis, it is still one of NASA's most successful missions, the cost of which amounted to one and a half billion dollars.
The scientists find it difficult to say goodbye
The famous research spacecraft ended its life, the "heroes" were defined. For 14 years, she provided a lot of knowledge, in many cases even amounts of knowledge that were not expected of her about the depths of the universe, the solar system and especially about Jupiter and its mysterious and wonderful moons. "Galileo" was developed by NASA and its launch from the space shuttle "Atlantis" was held after a few
Postponements, in particular due to the Challenger crash.
Its last revolution around the planet Jupiter is the victory revolution of a spaceship that gave its creators quite a few heart palpitations, and then brought them achievements, above and beyond what they expected. After a few mechanical failures, the spacecraft sprang to new life and literally rewrote everything scientists knew about the formation of Jupiter and its moons. The researchers still treat the data that "Galileo" transmitted to them as a gold mine.
The Galileo smash ends one of the most successful space missions ever carried out by scientists to explore the solar system and stars. "We find it hard to believe that we have reached the end of Galileo's life, which provided us with rich information, spectacular photographs
Science did not have before, data of incredible scope and detail, which created a computerized, fantastic database,'' said yesterday the head of the Galileo project, Dr. Claudia Alexander, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
"Galileo" orbited Tzedek for eight years, six years longer than it was indicated in the design. No way was found to extend her life, as she had little fuel left. The decision to destroy was made so that there would be no fear that her continued life in space would lead to contamination of Jupiter's moons. This canceled a plan to leave it in space for another 60 years. When there was a fear that it would not last, would crumble and cause environmental damage - it was decided on "controlled death".
Worked until the last minute
During its mission, which was extended three times, Galileo discovered the first moon of an asteroid, witnessed the impact of a comet hitting Jupiter and provided the first solid evidence for the existence of saline lakes on three of Jupiter's moons. Scientists consider one of these moons, Europa, to be the place with the best chances for life outside of Earth.
Among the most spectacular photos among the 14 photos delivered by "Galileo", the ones taken on the moon "Io" stand out. The spacecraft captured some of the 150 volcanic volcanoes on the moon as they were active, spewing hot lava and clouds of dust and gases. ''This spaceship
provided us with more surprises. We have important material in our hands today, much more than we could have imagined,'' says Andy Ingersoll, a justice expert at the California Institute of Technology.
The last measurements made by "Galileo" reached Earth after the disintegration of the spacecraft. The data traveled through space in 52 minutes, at the speed of light.
"I really find it hard to believe that the spacecraft continued to provide data until the last moment," said Claudia Alexander through tears. NASA plans to return to Jupiter in a decade with another unmanned spacecraft named the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter.
Galileo, it turns out, is not the first spacecraft to crash into Jupiter. research instrument
That she released in '95 did it before her. The device collected data on the planet's atmosphere for an hour, before it was destroyed.
A small and diligent antenna
The biggest glitch in the "Galileo" project was the shutdown of the spacecraft's large umbrella-shaped antenna, which stopped opening two years after launch. The malfunction forced NASA to rely on a smaller antenna, which barely managed to compress the amount of data that "Galileo" transmitted to Earth. The strong radiation in the vicinity of Jupiter also gave its signals on the electronic parts in the spacecraft, which received its energy from radioactive plutonium.
Still, according to NASA, "Galileo" has achieved 70 percent of the scientific goals set before it, including an analysis of the composition of Jupiter's atmosphere and the study of the rings surrounding the planet. The spacecraft also studied the dynamics of the magnetic environment around the largest planet in the Solar System.
"Galileo" was named after Galileo Galilei, the famous Italian astronomer. He was the one who discovered the four large moons of Jupiter in 1610 and his understanding of the solar system did not always line up with the conservative orthodoxy of the Vatican.
"Remember, he was looking for the truth," says Jim Erickson, former director of the project, "and we provided it."
