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Both will arrive in the Jupiter system in the late 2020s and early 2030s and should be able to acquire distant observations of Io. The proposed NASA Discovery mission Io Volcano Observer, currently going through a competitive process to be selected, would explore Io as its primary mission.
Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-34, carrying Galileo into Earth orbit. On December 19, 1985, it departed the JPL in Pasadena, California, on the first leg of its journey, a road trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. [14] [15] Due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the May launch date could not be met. [16]
On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off on the STS-51-L mission. A failure of the solid rocket booster 73 seconds into flight tore the spacecraft apart, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members. [48] The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was America's worst space disaster up to that time. [49]
Gliding past the planet Jupiter, the Cassini spacecraft captured this view of active Io, Jupiter's third largest moon, with the gas giant as a backdrop, in 2001.
Io (/ ˈ aɪ. oʊ /), or Jupiter I, is the innermost and second-smallest of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter.Slightly larger than Earth's moon, Io is the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System, has the highest density of any moon, the strongest surface gravity of any moon, and the lowest amount of water by atomic ratio of any known astronomical object in the Solar System.
NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission's 54th close flyby of the giant planet Sept. 7, 2023.
Artist's depiction of Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter. The exploration of Jupiter has been conducted via close observations by automated spacecraft.It began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2024, has continued with eight further spacecraft missions in the vicinity of Jupiter and two more en route.
The numbers run from Jupiter outward, thus I, II, III and IV for Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto respectively. [14] Galileo used this system in his notebooks but never actually published it. [13] The numbered names (Jupiter x) were used until the mid-20th century when other inner moons were discovered, and Marius' names became widely used. [14]