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                      GALILEO WEEKLY STATUS
                        November 7, 1989
 
     As of 8 a.m. (PST) Tuesday, November 7, 1989, the Galileo
spacecraft is 4.16 million miles from Earth, 28.2 million miles
along its path to its first gravity assist at Venus.  Round-trip
light time is almost 45 seconds.   Galileo still has 157 million
miles to go just to reach Venus; it is reducing that distance at
a rate of just over 60,000 mph, increasing slowly as it comes
closer to the Sun.  Jupiter lies about 2.4 billion miles ahead
along the VEEGA trajectory.  
 
     The spacecraft is spinning at about 3 rpm around an axis
pointed a few degrees from the Sun.  It is transmitting telemetry
at 7.68 kilobits per second; the RTG's are providing about 570
watts of power, 60 watts more than needed at present.  The heavy
ion counter, an engineering instrument which detects charged
particles from the atomic weight of carbon through that of iron,
has been seeing at least one every 2/3 second, mostly oxygen.  It
detected and characterized the recent major solar flare.
 
     Last week Galileo's flight team continued checkout,
maintenance, and characterization of various elements of the
spacecraft.  Notable among these was the dual-spin mode, in which
a major part of the spacecraft, carrying the scan platform with 4
instruments, the probe and probe relay system and associated
electronics, was spun in reverse while the rest of the machine was
still spinning at about 3 rpm.  This mode, which allows the camera
and other remote-sensing instruments to be aimed at planetary
targets, was satisfactorily maintained during the 70-minute
checkout. 
 
     The spacecraft was then put back in the all-spin mode for
other planned cruise operations.  These included sun pointing
(moving the spin axis from about 10 down to 1.25 degrees from the
Sun line).  Before and after this maneuver, the star sensor was
given a star map and turned on to determine attitude and spin rate,
which it did as planned.  An additional propulsion system
maintenance sequence was done early Monday.
 
     The first trajectory correction maneuver is planned for
November 9, 10, and 11; it will change the spacecraft velocity by
less than 17 meters per second (about 38 mph).  Small axial and
lateral thrusters will fire in pulses of about 1-sec duration.
 
     Nothing in the mission so far has ruled out the possibility
of an asteroid encounter (Gaspra, between the first and second
Earth flybys).  However, no final decision on asteroid encounters
will occur until after the Venus flyby in February, when Galileo's
flight team and other project personnel evaluate the post-Venus
flight path and the propellant margins at that time.

 
 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               |