Early next Monday Peter Churchill will bid farewell to an old friend.
Out in space a weary explorer will commit suicide for the sake of life forms that may - or may not - exist.
For almost eight years NASA's Galileo has been circling Jupiter, the king of the planets in terms of size.
It has studied its swirling atmosphere and mapped its family of moons. It has watched volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io and has sent back pictures suggesting that another, Europa, has a water ocean under a global ice cap.
But Galileo's work is done. Its electronics, poisoned by four times the radiation for which they were designed, are failing. It is nearly out of vital steering fuel.
On Monday, to ensure it does not crash onto Europa, contaminating any life in the watery world with earthly bacteria, NASA will send Galileo plunging to destruction into Jupiter's atmosphere.
In 1989, when Galileo was launched, Mr Churchill was an engineer at the Tidbinbilla space tracking station outside Canberra. As Galileo followed its six-year path to Jupiter, he rose through the ranks, finally becoming station director.
He was there as NASA battled to salvage the probe when it was discovered that Galileo's umbrella-like antenna, needed to beam back pictures and data, had jammed shut. In an extraordinary feat, Galileo's computer brain was re-programmed in flight so it could trickle back its findings using a small antenna never designed for the job.
And he was there as engineers found a way to computer-link Tidbinbilla's three tracking dishes with the Parkes radio telescope and a California station so they could act as one large ear, better able to hear Galileo's feeble whisper.
Tidbinbilla will follow Galileo one last time on Sunday. The next morning the probe will dive into Jupiter's atmosphere, break apart, melt and vaporise.
"It's done its job and we are giving it a very fit burial, allowing it to become part of the atmosphere of Jupiter," Mr Churchill said. "The worst thing that could happen is have it crash on one of the moons, such as Europa. If there is water, it may contain life forms."
With the death of Galileo, Tidbinbilla will have one less "customer" to worry about. It is already tracking two satellites now orbiting Mars.
New arrivals will include Europe's Mars Express, which goes into orbit around the planet on Christmas Day, before dropping Britain's Beagle 2 lander onto the surface.
"There will be no holiday for us," Mr Churchill said.
Mars Express will be followed into orbit by a Japanese probe.
On January 2, Tidbinbilla will watch as NASA's Stardust probe zooms by the comet Wild 2.
Two days later Tidbinbilla will be in the hot seat again as the first of two NASA rovers sets down on Mars. It is also tracking a second rover, which lands in late January.
But Mr Churchill said he would be thinking of Galileo as it dies on Monday. "I'll be raising a glass to say farewell."
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