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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 February 14, 1990
Scientists associated with NASA's Project Galileo
today released a photograph of the planet Venus obtained by
the Galileo spacecraft after it swung by Venus on its
gravity-assisted way to Jupiter. The picture, one of more
than 80 scheduled for the Venus flyby, was taken through a
violet filter by Galileo's solid-state camera shortly before
10 p.m. PST on Monday, Feb. 12, at a distance of about 1
million miles from the planet.
After being stored on the spacecraft's digital tape
recorder with Galileo's other Venus observational data, the
string of bits making up this image was transferred in
batches to spacecraft memory and then read out through the
spacecraft radio to Earth. This experimental and difficult
approach was necessary because the distance to Earth, and the
low-gain antenna Galileo is now using, limit the data rate to
1200 bits per second; the tape recorder's lowest playback
rate is more than six times as fast. Most of the Venus
science data will be played back later this year when Galileo
is close to Earth.
The Venus flyby increased Galileo's speed by more
than 5,000 mph in the first of three planetary gravity-assist
steps designed to get the spacecraft to Jupiter in December
1995. The next step is an Earth flyby in December 1990,
which also provides opportunities for scientific observation
of the Earth and Moon by Galileo's instruments as well as to
play back the Venus data and, most important, to gain almost
12,000 mph. The second Earth flyby two years later will add
about 8,000 mph and put the spacecraft on its Jupiter track.
The Galileo Project is managed by the Caltech Jet
Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science and
Applications. The mission was launched Oct. 18 by STS-34
Atlantis. Its primary objective is the study of Jupiter, its
satellites and magnetosphere in 1995-97.
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2-14-90 JHW