PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE 
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY 
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 
GALILEO MISSION STATUS 

September 1, 1994 

Galileo's first images of the July impacts of comet 
Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter were released during August. 
These were partial photometric scans of the fragment K 
event and a four-image sequence of the arrival of 
fragment W. This week the team is concluding a long-
planned series of engineering activities, including 
preparations for software changes that will ready the 
spacecraft for its Jupiter approach, atmospheric probe 
entry and relay, and orbit insertion activities late next 
year. 

On September 9, the Galileo flight team will transmit the 
next operating sequence to Galileo, commanding the 
spacecraft to resume transmitting Shoemaker-Levy data 
stored on Galileo's onboard tape recorder. This will 
continue, with an interruption for solar conjunction, 
through January 1995. The transmissions may include more 
views of fragment W and more photometric scans on fragment 
K. Scientists will also be seeing infrared, ultraviolet 
and photometric data on the very large fragment G impact, 
permitting comparison with Earth-based observatory 
measurements. 

Galileo is now 708 million kilometers (440 million miles) 
from the sun, a distance increasing by more than 400,000 
kilometers (a quarter-million miles) each day. It is 222 
million kilometers (138 million miles) from Jupiter, and 
a little more than 15 months from arrival at the giant 
planet. The spacecraft is operating normally, spinning at 
about 3 rpm, transmitting at 10 bits per second.