Galileo's first flyby of Callisto, Jupiter's second largest satellite and the third largest satellite in the solar system, occurred on 04 November 1996. At 13:34 UTC, Galileo came about 1098 km (within about 6 km of the target 1104 km) from the surface of Callisto. As measured to the center of Callisto, more than 100 times closer than Voyager 1 in 1979 and almost 200 times closer than Voyager 2 did later that same year. During this time, observations were also made of the Jovian magnetosphere as well as of the other satellites of Jupiter.
During the Callisto flyby, enhancements in NASA's Deep Space Network were implemented to permit a higher data return rate from Galileo which, coupled with other improvements, raised it from a mere 10 bps to close to 1,000 bps. This change should permit the project to accomplish 70% of the original science goals at Jupiter.
The following timeline is a list of different events which will occur beginning with the official start of the Callisto 3 (the number actually refers to the Galileo orbit number) encounter and proceding until the last data from the encounter are played back. The times are given in Universal Time (UTC) of the event at the spacecraft.
Date/Time Instrument Event
________ __________ _____
02 Nov 16:00 Start of Callisto 3 encounter
03 Nov 02:14 UVS First Jovian aurora observation
19:44 SSI Callisto Asgard Basin observation
04 Nov 03:30 RS Callisto gravity field measurement
13:11 F&P Callisto wake crossing recording
13:30 Callisto closest approach (3,510 km)
13:35 SSI Callisto Valhalla observation
14:18 PPR Callisto dark map observation
19:43 UVS Last Callisto 3 Io torus observation
05 Nov 02:14 NIMS First white oval observation
07:05 F&P Jovian aurora recording
06 Nov 04:00 NIMS First Io monitoring observation
06:07 SSI Io topographical map
11:49 NIMS High spatial and spectral Io observations
12:05 Io closest approach (244,000 km)
13:27 Jupiter closest approach (658,000 km)
18:43 Europa closest approach (34,000 km)
20:27 PPR Europa dark map observation
20:41 NIMS Europa limb occultation observation
23:21 NIMS Last Io monitoring observation
07 Nov 02:50 Science turn (high-phase Jupiter)
04:49 Ganymede closest approach (1,050,000 km)
17:40 NIMS Last white oval observation
20:30 Turn to return to Earth point
08 Nov 10:36 Start Earth occultation by Jupiter
17:15 End Earth occultation by Jupiter
23:00 Science turn (Solar occultation)
09 Nov 02:18 Start solar occultation by Jupiter
02:35 UVS First solar occultation observation
05:18 SSI Last Jovian aurora observation
10:00 Turn to return to Earth point
10:15 End solar occultation by Jupiter
13:10 UVS Last solar occultation observation
10 Nov 07:00 Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 14
11 Nov 02:00 Start of data playback (Callisto 3)
20:00 F&P End first magnetosphere mini-tour
20:00 Turn for attitude maintenance
27 Nov 19:43 Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 15
02 Dec 09:01 First Europa OPNAV (for Europa 4)
10 Dec 13:59 EUV/UVS First Io torus observation (Europa 4)
13 Dec 21:00 F&P Start Europa 4 real-time survey
17:21 Last Europa OPNAV (for Europa 4)
15 Dec 00:00 End of data playback (Callisto 3)
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