Galileo

Mission Profile

Galileo was NASA's Jupiter orbiter and atmospheric probe mission, launched on 18 October 1989 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis and reaching Jupiter in December 1995 after a gravity-assisted trajectory through the inner solar system. The probe separated from the orbiter and plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere on 7 December 1995, transmitting atmospheric composition and structure measurements for 57 minutes before being crushed by pressure. The orbiter then spent eight years studying Jupiter's moons, discovering that Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto all harbor subsurface liquid water oceans, with Europa's ocean now considered among the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial life in the solar system. Galileo was deliberately deorbited into Jupiter in September 2003 to prevent any possibility of contaminating Europa's ocean with terrestrial microbes.