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Faulty Tape Recorder Hinders Retrieval of Galileo

Posted by Hemos on from the get-it-all dept.

Sponge! writes "In an article on space.com, NASA scientists struggled to get a balky tape recorder to work last Tuesday so they could retrieve some of the final data gathered by the aging Galileo spacecraft. It would be sad to see something like this prevent us from getting the data that we've waited so long for, and may have to wait even longer."

3 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"waited so long for" by hubie · · Score: 3, Informative

    This isn't the sad part. The sad part was just after launch when they realized that the high gain antenna wouldn't deploy properly. That is what prevented us from getting all sorts of data. We've just been fortunate for the people that run the telemetry system who have managed to pack as much information as we've been getting into the low data rate downlink over the last decade.

  2. Contents of tape by Hard_Code · · Score: 4, Informative

    The contents of the tape are as follows:

    "do you get this thing to play?"
    "Just push play"
    "I already did that"
    "You did? Did you push the button with the arrow?"
    "The arrow? What arrow? I pushed the button with the dot...but I'm not hearing anything"
    "Shit"

    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
  3. Not Much of a surprize by HenryWirz · · Score: 3, Informative

    I recently attended a talk given by JPL's Nagin Cox, she worked on the Galileo project for 5 years.

    Regarding Amalthea flyby, she said that it was very likely that Galileo was going to be toasted by Jupiter's magnetic field. That's why Galileo went in to the flyby already lined up for the September 2003 Jovian Kamikaze Mission. The fear was that once it became a flying toaster they wouldn't be able to control it, they'd rather have it burn up in Jupiter's atmosphere rather than risk contaminating a moon.