baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) (12/15/90)
GALILEO MISSION STATUS
December 14, 1990
The Galileo spacecraft is 2.8 million miles from Earth,
receding at about half a million miles per day. At 89.3 million
miles, it is closer to the Sun than the Earth is, and will
continue approaching the Sun on this orbit until January 11, when
its present solar orbit will carry it back outward, this time
toward the Asteroid Belt. Present orbital speed is almost 80,300
mph relative to the Sun.
Spacecraft health and mission performance continue to be
excellent. A sun-pointing maneuver was successfully completed
yesterday. Today the Deep Space Network is sending the first
part of the first post-Earth cruise sequence to the spacecraft.
The current sequence, which includes all the Earth-Moon
scientific observations, runs until Monday morning. The new
sequence will control spacecraft activities until mid-February
1991.
Scientific observations of the Earth-Moon system will be
winding up tomorrow, and the scientists are busy analyzing and
interpreting the results. They will give a first look at these
results at a press conference at 10 a.m. (PST) Wednesday, December 19,
1990, at JPL and via the NASA SELECT satellite TV link.
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/_ /| /____/ \ /_ /|
| | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov
___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov
/___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 |
|_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 |