NASA seems to have solved the glitch causing the Galileo spacecraft to switch
into its 鈥渟afe鈥� mode each time it flew past one of Jupiter鈥檚 moons. This mode
prevents damage to the spacecraft in the event of a malfunction or other
emergency, but Galileo had been shutting down when nothing was wrong.
To solve the problem, flight engineers have uploaded software to the craft
that recognises false alarms. 鈥淚t does the same checks we do on the ground,鈥�
says Jim Erickson, Galileo project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California.