NASA · orbiter ended
Galileo
Galileo was the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter; it dropped a probe into the planet and found signs of an ocean inside Europa.
- Launch
- 18 October 1989
- End of mission
- 21 September 2003
Trajectory
Trajectory: JPL Horizons vectors (spacecraft -77) every 5 days, projected onto the ecliptic; compressed distance scale.
Mission timeline
- Launch aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-34)
- Venus flyby
- First close flyby of an asteroid, Gaspra
- Flyby of Ida, revealing its moon Dactyl
- Probe enters Jupiter's atmosphere; orbiter arrives at Jupiter
- Deliberate plunge into Jupiter
Targets: Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Gaspra, Ida, Venus
About the mission
Galileo took a winding route to Jupiter, swinging past Venus and twice past Earth, and became the first spacecraft to fly close to asteroids, discovering that Ida has its own small moon. In December 1995 its probe plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere while the orbiter entered orbit. Even though its main antenna never fully opened, the mission returned evidence of a salty ocean beneath Europa's ice, watched Io's volcanoes change and detected a magnetic field around Ganymede. In 2003 it was sent into Jupiter to avoid any chance of crashing onto Europa.