Ground controllers for one of NASA's most successful planetary probes will bid a fond farewell Sunday to Galileo, a spacecraft that spent the better part of eight years studying Jupiter and its moons. The Galileo probe will create its own funeral pyre as it burns up in the Jovian atmosphere, a fiery end to its 14 years of space travel.
"It's a little sad to be present at the demise of a great spacecraft," said Claudia Alexander, Galileo's project manager, who will await confirmation that the craft indeed hits Jupiter Sunday in a darkened control room with others at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA officials decided to destroy the spacecraft rather than risk the chance of it crashing into and contaminating one of Jupiter's moons.
Alexander told SPACE.com that Galileo will only penetrate into the topmost region of Jupiter's atmosphere. Because the spacecraft lacks any protection against reentry, it will break apart into pieces that are easily vaporized due to friction. There is hope by some JPL researchers that Galileo will be able to relay data back to Earth during its death dive, but Alexander is skeptical.
"We hope, with our fingers crossed, to receive data from as far down as possible," she said. But because Galileo will be entering a high radiation area on its way down to Jupiter, and the fact that the craft has already absorbed much more radiation than it was designed for, could affect its ability to effectively send data, she added. By mission's end, Galileo had discovered 21 new moons around Jupiter and caught the flashy destruction of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which slammed into the gas giant in 1994.
Some 1500 people are expected to pay their respects to Galileo during the end of mission celebration at JPL. "You know there will be a few moist eyes when it finally disappears, but mostly it's a feeling of great satisfaction," said Torrence Johnson, project scientist for Galileo since the mission began. "We went there and exceeded even our highest expectations and it's set the stage for future missions."
