Pasadena, Calif. — NASA has extended its Galileo mission a third time, allowing the unmanned spacecraft to continue orbiting Jupiter until 2003, when it will make a fiery plunge into the planet's atmosphere.
The extension will allow the aging probe to make five more swings past Jupiter's moons Amalthea, Callisto and Io before burning up in the giant planet's 37,000-mile thick atmosphere in August 2003.
"We're proud that this workhorse of a spacecraft has kept performing well enough that we can ask it to keep serving science a little longer," said Jay Bergstralh, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's acting director of solar system exploration.
Since it began orbiting Jupiter in 1995, Galileo has released a probe that made the first measurements of the planet's atmosphere, provided strong evidence that its moon Europa has a liquid ocean and discovered the first asteroid orbiting another asteroid. Galileo also gave the only direct view of Comet Shoemaker-Levy as it slammed into Jupiter.
Galileo, launched in 1989, completed its primary exploration of the Jupiter system in 1997.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.