Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308290054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PASADENA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
"We feel wonderful and greatly relieved," said Bill O'Neil, project manager of the $1.4 billion Galileo mission run by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "I really feel good having this past us and having a big plus mark today following not-so-good news earlier in the week."
Galileo, hampered by a jammed main antenna, made its successful exploration of Ida one week after NASA lost touch with Mars Observer as that spacecraft neared the Red Planet on the first U.S. Martian exploration in 17 years.
Despite last-ditch efforts to restore contact, the $980 million Mars mission appeared to be over.
Galileo zoomed about 1,491 miles from Ida - a 20-mile-long, irregularly shaped asteroid - at 12:52 p.m. EDT, NASA spokesman Jim Wilson said. Radio signals confirming that the flyby happened took another half-hour to travel 334 million miles to Earth.
It was only the second time a spacecraft visited an asteroid. Galileo made the first such exploration in 1991, when it swept within 995 miles of asteroid Gaspra.
A glitch four hours before Galileo's close encounter with Ida meant the spacecraft failed to take three of 21 planned photographs, but they were the longest-distance photos and unimportant compared to the close-ups, O'Neil said. He was confident Galileo successfully captured the best pictures, although it will be next month before the first two pictures are sent to Earth. The others will be transmitted next spring.
"The presents are all wrapped up on the spacecraft and we don't get to open them for a while," said Torrence Johnson, Galileo's chief scientist.
Galileo, launched from a shuttle in 1989, still has its biggest challenge ahead: exploring Jupiter for two years starting in December 1995.
The spacecraft is hampered because its main antenna, which should look like an upside-down umbrella, failed to fully open two years ago. Efforts to fix it failed. So Galileo must dribble pictures and data back to Earth using a small antenna. That means 30 percent of the mission's scientific goals at Jupiter may not be met, O'Neil has said.
Galileo's pictures of Ida are being sent to Earth slowly because of the antenna problem and the craft's great distance.
Galileo previously flew past Venus once and Earth twice.
by CNB