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1993-05-03
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PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 14, 1990
NASA's Galileo spacecraft Saturday afternoon
completed a two-day maneuver to shape its course for a
gravity-assist flyby of Earth in December, designed to help
it reach Jupiter in 1995.
The Galileo flight team at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory monitored the computer-controlled operations as
the rotating spacecraft pulsed its tiny lateral thrusters a
total of nearly 3,000 times. The series of pulses, which
took nearly 14 hours to complete in two daily sessions,
slowed Galileo in its course by about 25 mph.
This is the second trajectory-correction maneuver
since Galileo's gravity-assist flyby of Venus in February,
and the fourth since launch in October 1989. Four more small
maneuvers are planned to fine-tune the Earth flyby.
With a final Earth flyby in late 1992, Galileo will
have built up the correct velocity to reach Jupiter in
December 1995. There it will send a probe into the giant
planet's atmosphere and fly a series of orbits around Jupiter
and its satellites, studying that planetary system for almost
two years.
The Galileo Project is managed for NASA's Office of
Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.
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