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The Galileo spacecraft is preparing for its next flyby of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, scheduled for this Sunday, November 22, at 3:38 a.m. Pacific Standard Time at an altitude of 2,273 kilometers (1,412 miles).

The spacecraft performed a flight path maneuver today to ensure that it is aimed correctly for the flyby. Its onboard tape recorder will begin regular maintenance tomorrow.

The tape recorder has been transmitting to Earth pictures and science information gathered during the last Europa flyby in late September. Included in the data being sent this week are observations describing Europa's surface features at high, regional and global resolutions, and an image of Jupiter's rings. This week the spacecraft's dust detector instrument is gathering data on the dust environment around Jupiter.

After Sunday's Europa encounter, Galileo will fly by Europa once more in early 1999, before beginning a series of four encounters of Jupiter's moon Callisto and one or two flybys of Jupiter's moon Io, depending on spacecraft health.