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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory built the Galileo spacecraft and managed the Galileo program for NASA. West Germany's Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm supplied the propulsion module. NASA's Ames Research Center managed the atmospheric probe, which was built by Hughes Aircraft Company. At launch, the orbiter and probe together had a mass of 2,562 kg ...
Constellation visibility from a location on Earth's surface. As of 2012, [96] the system was scheduled to have 15 satellites operational in 2015 and reach full operation in 2020 [needs update] with the following specifications: 30 in-orbit spacecraft (24 in full service and 6 spares) Orbital altitude: 23,222 km (14,429 mi)
Spacecraft Organization Date Location Status Notes Image Ref WMAP: NASA: 30 June 2001 (launch) – October 2010 (end) [63] Sun-Earth L2 point success cosmic background radiation observations; sent to graveyard orbit after 9 years of use. [63] 2001-027A: Spitzer Space Telescope: NASA: 25 August 2003 (launch) – 30 January 2020 (end)
Model of a Galileo satellite. This is a list of past and present satellites of the Galileo navigation system.The fully operational constellation will nominally consist of 30 satellites in Medium Earth Orbit, with 24 active and 6 spares equally divided into 3 orbital planes in a Walker 24/3/1 configuration.
JPL built the Galileo spacecraft and managed the Galileo program for NASA, but West Germany's Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm supplied the propulsion module, and Ames managed the atmospheric probe, which was built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. At launch, the orbiter and probe together had a mass of 2,562 kg (5,648 lb) and stood 6.15 m (20.2 ft) tall.
Starting with Galileo's first orbit, the spacecraft's camera, the Solid-State Imager (SSI), began taking one or two images per orbit of Io while the moon was in Jupiter's shadow. This allowed Galileo to monitor high-temperature volcanic activity on Io by observing thermal emission sources across its surface. [68]
In October 1989, the Galileo spacecraft was launched on from Kennedy Space Center's Complex 39B. Designed to study Jupiter, its moons, and its surrounding environment, Galileo was the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet. The mission also included encounters with the asteroids 951 Gaspra and 243 Ida.
The Galileo project would have been considered a success even if the spacecraft had stayed operational only through the end of the primary mission on 7 December 1997, two years after Jupiter arrival. The orbiter was an extremely robust machine, however, with many backup systems.