Galileo was an unmanned NASA spacecraft which studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other solar system bodies. Named after Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and entry probe. It was launched on October 18, 1989, carried by Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-34 mission. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. It launched the first probe into Jupiter, directly measuring its atmosphere. Despite suffering major antenna problems, Galileo achieved the first asteroid flyby, of 951 Gaspra, and discovered the first asteroid moon, Dactyl, around 243 Ida.
On September 21, 2003, after 14 years in space and 8 years in the Jovian system, Galileo's mission was terminated by sending the orbiter into Jupiter's atmosphere at a speed of over 48 kilometres (30 mi) per second, reducing the chance of contaminating local moons with terrestrial bacteria.
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