I read that the tape recorder rewound for 15 hours! Doesn it have an auto turn off mode?
Yes, the tape recorder does have an automatic shutoff at the end or beginning of tape. The problem wasn’t with the automatic shutoff not working; as it turns out, the tape recorder mechanism was moving along, but the tape itself stayed put. Okay, so why didn’t engineers turn off the tape recorder as soon as they knew that there was a problem? We needed to have the capability to send a command to Galileo saying “shut off the tape recorder,” and, at the time of the tape recorder problem, that commanding capability wasn’t present. The problem was discovered over Goldstone, but it was too late in the tracking period to send a command to Galileo. The next station to “rise” and start tracking Galileo was Canberra (which has a 12 hour view of the spacecraft). Unfortunately, Canberra’s transmitter wasn’t available — it was down for maintenance. So, it wasn’t until the station at Madrid “rose” that we were able to send the “turn off the tape recorder” command, approximately 15 hours after the
