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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 April 16, 1990
NASA's Galileo spacecraft last week completed a
four-day maneuver sequence to begin shaping its course for a
December gravity assist from the Earth to help it reach the
planet Jupiter in late 1995.
Operating from computer programs written by the
Galileo flight team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and
transmitted by the Deep Space Network in four daily segments,
the spacecraft pulsed its tiny lateral thrusters almost 1600
times. The effect was to slow Galileo in its course by about
55 miles per hour.
This was the first of several maneuvers planned
this year to shape the flight path for a flyby of Earth on
December 8, 1990. Together with another Earth flyby in
December 1992, this will give Galileo the precise energy
needed to reach Jupiter in 1995, to carry out its two-year
scientific observation of that planet and its satellites and
to probe its atmosphere directly.
The maneuver was carried out well within design
expectations, according to Galileo Project Manager William J.
O'Neil. The next days and weeks of tracking will confirm
details of the new flight path. The health of the Galileo
spacecraft remains excellent.
Galileo was launched by the space shuttle Atlantis on
October l8, l989, and flew past Venus last February 9.
The Galileo Project is managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science and
Applications.
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4-13-90 jhw