What limits how much data is collected during a satellite encounter?
Although Galileo can send some data directly on to Earth immediately after it is collected (i.e. in “real time”), most of the data taken during a satellite encounter will be recorded on Galileo’s tape recorder, and then played back in the weeks following the encounter period. As you might therefore expect, the tape recorder’s capacity limits the amount of data that can be collected, though time may limit the amount of data that gets returned to Earth. Since the tape recorder only has one tape, the same tape gets used for each encounter. Therefore, the data from one encounter will be overwritten by the data from the next encounter, much like someone reusing the same videotape to record a favorite television show each week will record over the previous week’s show. If the “cruise” period between encounters is long enough, or if the spacecraft can transmit its data to Earth at a high enough rate, then more of the data on the tape recorder will be played back to Earth. However, if the crui
