2003-09-22 | MISSIONS
Galileo End of Mission Status

The Galileo spacecraft's 14-year odyssey came to an end on Sunday, Sept. 21, when the spacecraft passed into Jupiter's shadow then disintegrated in the planet's dense atmosphere at 11:57 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The , Deep Space Network tracking station in Goldstone, Calif., received the last signal at 12:43:14 PDT. The delay is due to the time it takes for the signal to travel to Earth. Galileo's prime mission actually ended six years ago, but NASA extended the mission three times to continue taking advantage of Galileo's unique capabilities for accomplishing valuable science.

Since its deployment from the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1989, Galileo traveled more that 4.6 billion kilometers in order to gather 30 gigabytes of data for scientists on Earth, including 14,000 pictures. The spacecraft produced a string of discoveries about asteroids, a fragmented comet, Jupiter's atmosphere, Jupiter's magnetic environment, and especially about the geologic diversity of Jupiter's four largest moons. One of Galileo's greatest discoveries was evidence of a subsurface ocean on Europa that could possibly harbor extraterrestrial life. Such information has been invaluable for determining whether or not many of these locales, from Europa to asteroids, could be places to look for signs of life in our solar system.

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