The camera aboard NASA's Galileo was on the blink Thursday as the spacecraft headed toward its closest flyby of the Jovian moon Callisto. The problem appeared Wednesday as the robotic spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter, rounding out its 30th orbit of the giant planet.
Engineers think intense radiation from the planet damaged electronic components in the camera.
Other instruments were functioning properly. The camera glitch may mean that images Galileo snapped of Jupiter during the current flyby are lost. A similar situation developed five months ago, when Galileo flew by the moon Ganymede but lost about half of the 120 images it had captured. Galileo was launched in 1989 and arrived at Jupiter in December 1995. It will continue to orbit Jupiter until September 2003, when NASA will send it plunging into Jupiter's thick atmosphere to end the mission.