🚀 go-pugleaf

                      GALILEO WEEKLY STATUS
                        October 30, 1989
 
 
          This is a weekly Galileo status report.  Today,
October 30, 1989, the spacecraft is about 2.5 million miles from
Earth, and has gone 16.7 million along its 2.4-billion-mile
spiral course to Jupiter.  Its velocity around the Sun is almost
60,000 mph.  All subsystems are working well.
 
          Since launch, operators have sent hundreds of real-
time commands to the Galileo spacecraft. The S-band transmitter
has been switched to 30 watts, and the propulsion system has been
exercised twice in maintenance maneuvers (primarily to move
oxidizer and fuel along in the plumbing.)  The telemetry rate is
7.68 kilobits per second.
 
          As of this morning, the spacecraft is spinning at 2.9
rpm around an axis within 1 degree of the Sun line.  As Galileo
progresses around towards Venus, the Sun angle changes; this is
held to less than 14 degrees, by commanded or automatic
maneuvers, to assure a shaded spacecraft.
 
          The atmospheric entry probe was checked out last
Thursday, October 26, and its condition is satisfactory.  The
imaging system and the near-infrared mapping spectrometer
were checked out Friday, with good results.  Preparatory
activities for various other science instruments are being
done, but the only instruments actually turned on and taking
data are the magnetometer and the HIC.
 
          The heavy ion counter, an engineering instrument
modified from parts of a Voyager cosmic-ray sensor, was
turned on ten days ago and detected the latter part of the
solar flare of October 19.  Heavy ions of energies up to 130
MEV (million electron volts) have been detected, but the
spacecraft has experienced no single-event upsets (i.e., no
ill effects.) 
 
          Today the star sensor on the spinning section is to
be checked out, in preparation for Wednesday's start of dual-
spin operations.  The lower section of the Galileo spacecraft
will be spun in reverse, with electric motors, stopping the
rotation and despinning the science scan platform.
 
          The first trajectory-correction maneuver, TCM-1, is
scheduled, in three instalments, for November 9, 10 and 11.


 Ron Baalke                       |    (818) 541-2341 x260
 Jet Propulsion Lab  M/S 301-355  |    baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov
 4800 Oak Grove Dr.               |
 Pasadena, CA 91109               |