Galileo Europa 4 Flyby Entry Timeline


Europa 4 Flyby was 19 December 1996

Galileo's first flyby of Europa, the smallest of Jupiter's Galilean satellites, was on 19 December 1996 at 06:53 UTC. At that time, Galileo came 698 km (about 7 km from the target distance) from the surface of Europa (or about 1.4 Europa radii from its center). As measured to the center of Europa, this is nearly 325 times closer than Voyager 1 came in 1979 and about 90 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.

The following timeline is a list of different events which will occur beginning with the official start of the Europa 4 (the number actually refers to the Galileo orbit number) encounter and proceding until the last data from the encounter are played back. Because of a solar occultation which occurred during the fifth orbit of Galileo, the activities during this time are also included in the Europa 4 timeline. The times are given in Universal Time (UTC) of the event at the spacecraft.

Date/Time             Instrument    Event
________              __________    _____
15 Dec  00:00                       Start of Europa 4 encounter
        10:19         UVS           End last Io torus observation

16 Dec  02:30                       Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 16
        10:00         UVS           Jupiter auroral map

17 Dec  14:48         PPR           First hot spot observation
        19:09         NIMS          Io eclipse ingress observation
        19:46         SSI           Io eclipse thermal observation
        21:27         NIMS          Io eclipse egress observation

18 Dec  07:13         SSI           Amalthea imaging
        08:10         SSI           Thebe imaging
        19:55         PPR           Europa global observation
        21:37                       Io closest approach (321,000 km)

19 Dec  01:19         NIMS          Europa global mosaic
        03:22                       Jupiter closest approach (655,000 km)
        03:30         SSI           Adrastea imaging
        03:40         SSI           Europa maculae region
        06:20         F&P           Europa wake crossing recording
        06:27         NIMS          Europa Double Line area
        06:51                       Start solar occultation by Europa
                                    Start Earth occultation by Europa
        06:53                       Europa closest approach (2,270 km)
        07:08                       Start solar occultation by Europa
        07:09                       Start Earth occultation by Europa
        20:12                       Ganymede closest approach (792,000 km)

20 Dec  04:00                       Science turn (high-phase Jupiter)
        06:34         SSI           First high-phase Jupiter observation
        13:32                       Callisto closest approach (1,490,000 km)
        16:50         NIMS          Last high-phase Jupiter observation
        16:53         UVS           Last hot spot observation
        17:11         NIMS          Jupiter rings observation
        18:23                       Turn to return to Earth point

21 Dec  05:57         UVS           Himalia observation
        16:17         RS            Atmospheric profile during occultation
        17:43                       Start Earth occultation by Jupiter
        19:00         F&P           End Europa 4 real-time survey

22 Dec  00:37                       End Earth occultation by Jupiter
        02:52                       Start solar occultation by Jupiter
        10:52                       End solar occultation by Jupiter
        13:00                       Start playback

23 Dec  09:45                       Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 17

23 Dec  20:38                       Turn for attitude maintenance


1997

04 Jan  14:30                       Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 18

08 Jan  14:53                       Turn for attitude maintenance

10 Jan  22:14                       Start solar conjunction (contains phasing orbit)

19 Jan  09:36                       Ganymede closest approach (1,150,000 km)

20 Jan  00:28                       Jupiter closest approach (646,000 km)
        01:12                       Europa closest approach (28,900 km)

21 Jan  20:18                       Callisto closest approach (600,000 km)

22 Jan  01:25                       Io closest approach (1,470,000 km)

23 Jan  08:03                       Start solar occultation by Jupiter
        09:54                      Start Earth occultation by Jupiter
        16:51                       End solar occultation by Jupiter
        18:32                       End Earth occultation by Jupiter

28 Jan  15:09                       End solar conjunction

06 Feb  13:00                       Orbital Trim Maneuver (OTM) 19

10 Feb  01:00                       First Europa OPNAV (for Europa 6)
        18:38                       Turn for attitude maintenance

16 Feb  06:49                       Last Europa OPNAV (for Europa 6)

17 Feb  00:00                       End of data playback (Europa 4)

Other Event Related News


| NSSDCA Galileo page | NSSDCA Planetary page |


Author/Curator:
Dr. Edwin V. Bell, II
Mail Code 690.1
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771
+1-301-286-1187
ed.bell@nasa.gov

NASA Official: Dr. David R. Williams V1.0, 20 February 1997
Last updated: Wednesday, 25-Feb-2015 10:04:33 EST, EVB II