JPL's Guy Webster did indeed make his enquiries about the possibility and cost of Amalthea imaging, and got back to me today with the following news:
(1) "Aviation Week" didn't know that JPL has an actual contractual obligation to process and distribute imaging data from Galileo immediately, and cannot easily get out of it. Taking that into account, they nevertheless seriously considered a cut-rate A34 imaging scheme that would have cost about half as much as the full-fledged effort (that is, about $600,000), but finally rejected it both because of cost and the chances of failure but because... (2) The fields and particles data from the A34 orbit is actually of a much higher priority scientifically. The 2000 MO&DA document actually lists A34 magnetospheric data as the fourth highest priority among the 9 possible goals of the final phase of Galileo: "[It] will provide a unique opportunity to measure the charged particle environment and the radial variation of Jupiter's magnetic field down to 1 Jupiter radius, with the consequent capability of improving models of Jupiter's magnetic field, including high-order components." Webster told me that they don't want to run the risk of screwing this up as the result of an attempt to complicate Galileo's operating procedures in order to do imaging during A34. This is especially true because Galileo's operating team is now down to an absolute bare-bones operation. (3) The plan is still simply to switch Galileo off at its next apoapsis in January 2003; when it finally does plunge into Jupiter in September 2003, no one will be listening. This seems a rather ignominious end to the mission, but then Galileo has always been a hard-luck space mission. (Hard to believe that it's been over a quarter-century since the project was initiated...) So: it was a nice idea, but there is no chance of it, and a fairly convincing argument against it after all. Oh, well... == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
