Galileo crashes into Callisto in Orbit C30

[Marco Klunder]

Having finished my new "Galileo Mission" script, but still waiting for the new Celestia release 161 or 170 as a prerequisite to release it, I just wanted to report this bug now.

Although the very much improved Galileo xyzv trajectories compared to the old Celestia v160 release Galileo xyz trajectory, for Celestia SVN (5152) and v161 (last update by Andrew Tribick), it unfortunately is just not perfect enough, because of a Galileo crash into Callisto in Orbit C30.
Below the picture of the moment of impact

Galileo_crash_Orbit_C30.jpg

Another issue is the used model. It unfortunately does not contain its Probe from lauch to Probe release on 13 July 1995.
But that's not new for SVN or 161, that's already longer the case in previous Celestia releases.
I also know the models of Jack Higgins, but it shouls also be nice to have a default correct Galileo model in Celestia (like Cassini), with and without its Probe to be "scientifically" more correct.

Marco

[CAP-Team]

Hi Marco,

When using spice kernels (for both Galileo and Callisto), Galileo approaches Callisto upto as close as 137 kilometers.

So the xyzv vectors probably have some rounding problems.

[chris]

Hi Marco,

When using spice kernels (for both Galileo and Callisto), Galileo approaches Callisto upto as close as 137 kilometers.

So the xyzv vectors probably have some rounding problems.

The xyzv trajectory should be OK. But, there may be errors in the positions of the Galilean satellites larger than 137 km. A worthwhile test would be to create an add-on that shows the position of Callisto calculated from a SPICE kernel and compare it with the position computed from the built-in semi-analytic series.

--Chris