GALILEO PREPARING FOR JUPITER ARRIVAL

The most critical events of the Galileo mission occur on Jupiter arriv al day, December 7, 1995. In chronological order, these one-time event s are: a 1,000 km altitude flyby of the innermost Galilean satellite I o, the 75-minute Atmospheric Entry Probe mission, and the Orbiter's Ju piter Orbit Insertion (JOI) maneuver. In addition, extensive, unique O rbiter science observations are planned because this is the only time Galileo will encounter Io, fly through the Io torus, and will be so cl ose to Jupiter-three times closer than at any of the perijove passes i n the orbital mission. All of these events occur in what will. be by f ar the most intense radiation environment Galileo will ever see. The f ocus of this Paper is the extraordinary preparations being made to max imize the reliability of the most critical events in order to ensure a successful Probe mission and Orbit Insertion while also gathering uni que arrival day Orbiter science. The Paper also provides a mission sta tus report including the return of the asteroid Ida data and the Galil eo direct line-of-sight observations of Comet Shoemaker-Levy fragments impacting Jupiter in July 1994.