Today in the history of astronomy, the Slingshot maneuver put Galileo on the path of Jupiter.
NASA’s diagram of Galileo’s trajectory shows its orbit around Venus and Earth before heading toward Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
- The Galileo spacecraft was launched on October 18, 1989, aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, beginning its mission to Jupiter.
- Its original direct trajectory was modified due to the cancellation of the booster after the Challenger disaster, necessitating the implementation of three planetary gravity assists.
- These gravity assists included a Venus flyby on February 10, 1990, followed by two Earth flybys on December 8, 1990 and December 8, 1992, respectively.
- Galileo successfully reached Jupiter on December 7, 1995, then spent eight years as the first spacecraft to orbit an exoplanet, collecting data on the gas giant, its rings and its five moons.
The Galileo spacecraft was launched on the Space Shuttle on October 18, 1989. atlantisThe first step in the journey to Jupiter. Although the original plan for Galileo was for a direct path to the gas giant, the booster that would have powered that journey was later canceled. contender Disaster due to safety concerns. A new plan was necessary: instead, three planetary gravity assists would be used to get Galileo on the correct trajectory. The first flight to Venus was successfully completed on February 10, 1990.
On December 8, 1990, Galileo made the first orbit around Earth, catapulting to a distance of 597 miles (960 kilometers). The gravity assist was successful, increasing the spacecraft’s speed and sending it into orbit around the Sun before its second Earth flyby, just two years later. The three combined gravity assists were enough to send Galileo to Jupiter, where it arrived on December 7, 1995. It will spend the next eight years there – the first spacecraft to orbit an exoplanet – collecting data on the gas giant, its rings and its five moons.
