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)
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