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Galileo, Consumed by Jupiter
We ran stories about Galileo's impending incineration earlier this month and last November when the plan was decided.
Here is a typical passage from Journey Beyond Selene, about the worst glitch in Galileo's mission, and the beginnings of how it would be worked around. Failures and the engineers who salvage them are the recurring tragic, triumphant story of our missions into space. Reproduced without permission:
With such triply redundant hardware built into their spacecraft, mission planners could feel confident that they had designed a communications system that was almost completely resistant to failure, and for the first eighteen months after Galileo's 1989 launch, there was no reason to assume anything would fail. Finally, on April 11, 1991, when the ship's trajectory had spiraled out as far as the edge of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, JPL planners decided it was at last probably safe to unlock the high-gain antenna and spread its ribs. It was only then that they'd learn if triply redundant was redundant enough.
Though the deployment of the high-gain system was not a complicated exercise, it was a critical one, and for that reason the chieftans of the Galileo project made sure they were there to watch it happen. On hand at the flight director's console that afternoon were mission director Neal Ausman, deputy mission director Matt Landanow, and project manager Bill O'Neil. O'Neil and Ausman were far and away the higher ranking of the three men, but Landanow, they all knew, was far and away the most knowledgeable. As chief engineer during the Galileo design phase, he had familiarized himself with every strut, nut and rivet of the ship, and could practically describe their placement and purpose from memory alone. If anything went wrong this afternoon, Landanow would likely be the first person to recognize it -- and the first person to come up with a way to fix it.
For the first forty minutes or so after the deployment command went up, O'Neil, Ausman and Landanow had little to do. Like so many other JPL controllers before them, they knew they would have to tolerate the nonnegotiable limits of light speed, waiting twenty minutes as their signal traveled from Pasadena to the spacecraft and then another twenty minutes as it traveled back again. For that entire time their screens told them nothing, flickering merely with the self-evident information that their command had indeed been sent. Finally, after just over the anticipated forty minutes had elapsed, a column of numbers began to blink on the glass. Landanow gave the figures a quick scan and immediately noticed something amiss. He read them again -- a bit more closely -- and this time started to feel downright queasy. The antenna, from all indications, was pulling what the engineers called stall current. The motor was drawing power, the deployment gears were engaged, but the ribs of the umbrella appeared to be going nowhere at all.
"We're stuck," Landanow said flatly.
"How can you tell?" O'Neil asked.
"The current is saturated, something is jammed," Landanow said. "In any event, the antenna's not budging."
Ausman gave the numbers on the screen a read of his own, confirmed what Landanow was saying, and immediately called out to his flight controllers, instructing them to send a second deployment command up to the ship. The engineers complied, and forty minutes later another stall signal came down. A third command yielded a third signal, and a fourth a fourth. With each new report Landanow winced. If he knew this ship -- and he surely did -- he could all but guarantee that whatever was hanging up the antenna was not much: a single too-tight fitting, perhaps, a single protruding bolt, one that was situated in just such a way that it managed to jam all eighteen ribs. If it were somehow possible to transport the Galileo spacecraft to a hangar in Pasadena, Landanow knew he could probably roll over a stepladder, climb up to the antenna, and spring it free with his hands alone. But Galileo was not in a hangar in Pasadena; it was tens of millions of miles away, at the edge of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and more elaborate measures would be necessary.
I heard on the radio that there was a chance the plutonium in the probe was going to ignite Jupiter into a second star, and it would kill/sterilize most humans on Earth! Glad that didn't happen.
Cheers, didn't know which was going down faster... Galileo or the NASA webcast...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
The JPL's webcast starts roughly now, and should last about two hours (light delay).
:)
Hehe.. and just so that it doesn't feel left out, that JPL webserver is currently experiencing what its like to get smashed into Jupiter at 48km/s
Good old Slashdot.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
How did you find out my master plan!!!
PINKY! Here, NOW!
Man, that would make a great book.
I've been looking forward to Galileo's collision with Jupiter for weeks. I can't wait to see which one wins!
H4x0r Economist - k33ping d3m0cr4cy l33t 51Nc3 1987
NASA Press Release: Due to an unprecedented amount of web traffic on the announcement of the Galileo space probe's imminent plunge into the Jovian atmosphere, the Galileo comms computing center was brought to its knees. NASA engineers showed their ingenuity once more, as the flood of internet traffic was directed to the Galileo probe itself, heating Transistor QB-2542a, allowing the main antenna to unfold and allow the original planned communication range, in addition to acting as a miniature solar sail to push Galileo on a recovery arc around Jupiter. NASA Galileo Command would like to extend appreciation to Slashdot and its readers for allowing the unqualified successes of the Galileo mission to continue.
...
The JPL's webcast starts roughly now
Crap. All NASA offers is RealPlayer.
Miss seeing Galileo crash into Jupiter
or
Spend thirty minutes clicking half a dozen hidden, misleadingly named submenu checkboxes to retain my privacy. And then spend three days un-doing RealPlayer's attempt to take over my entire system and all file extensions.
Screw it. I won't download any insertions into bodies no matter how heavenly if it's in RealPlayer format. Definitely not gonna start with something's that not porn. I'll catch the 2 minute recap on the news.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Maybe it will turn jupiter into a mini-sun, and the ice on Europa will start to melt, and the moon (now a planet) would slowly become habitable
I'm sorry, haven't you heard that Europa is forever off-limits to us?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
By the time this ungodly slashdotting ends and I will finally be able to see NASA's pages on the topic, Galileo will already be consumed by Jupiter... so in a way, it's probably correct.
I heard on the radio that there was a chance the plutonium in the probe was going to ignite Jupiter into a second star, and it would kill/sterilize most humans on Earth!
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - NASA probe Galileo was incinerated in Jupiter's atmosphere this afternoon. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss it - even if you didn't enjoy its transmissions, there's no denying its contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
"Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die." .... Sounds like he needed some love. ::sniff:::
I bet they miss!!
"Hey, look we finally got the antenna open.. oh, wait, never mind."
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
It's gone. Nothing to see here folks, just move along.
Yah, sure, they crashed this one *on purpose*. They forgot Jupiter was so big is my guess.
Tell me another story, Grampa.
I ain't buyin' it. NASA just screwed up again and arranged the phony paper trail on their website, complete with press releases, as a massive coverup. Hey, if they can make up a Moon Shot (Capricorn One? Galileo 2003? Sure!) then they can definitely cover up a screwup like this one.
First, Afganistan, then Iraq, and now JUPITER!!!
When will this administration stop?!?!?!?
At least it didn't get stuck in Uranus.
I think my favorite commentary on it was from Fox news here last night, which noted that if the plutonium core exploded, then "it would disrupt the entire galaxy." This, after a perfectly fine report on Galileo. It was the last sentence of their blurb -- something to give you warm fuzzies, I guess.
I was wondering what level of disturbance would be required before the entire galaxy was "disrupted" -- simply being visible across the entire galaxy, a tremor like an earthquake, or something more sinister? Perhaps Fox needs a galactic Richter scale to better scare the masses. "It's a 0.00009 on the Asimov scale, which doesn't seem like much and we won't feel any effects; but if you were there, you'd be killed, alright!"
Don't worry, the Jovians will probably just pass a bunch of opressive legislation to demoralize their population and then destabalize their economy to pay for blasting Mercury into the sun. We'll be fine.
That picture is all brown, I guess Gallileo landed in the shit.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Isn't Europe already contaminated with life?
Damn Europeans...
(Take it easy, just a little US-centric humor)
WTF? Over?