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. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 |