Secret instruments operated by the US intelligence agencies may be aimed at NASA's Galileo satellite when it swings past Earth later this year. The classified observatories, originally built to study Soviet military satellites, may be able to find out what is preventing Galileo's main antenna from unfurling.
Galileo's main transmission antenna has been stuck since 11 April 1991, when NASA first tried to open it. If it cannot be fixed, the satellite's planned flood of images from Jupiter is likely to be a trickle. In its current state the antenna can transmit only a tiny fraction of the data it was intended to send back to Earth - 10.5 bits a second instead of 136 000 bits a second.
Engineers at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena believe that three ribs of the umbrella-like antenna are caught on a pin that helped to hold the furled antenna in place. ...
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