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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Kennedy Space Center’s SAEF-2 planetary spacecraft checkout facility, technicians work on the spacecraft Galileo prior to moving it to the Vertical Processing Facility for mating with an Inertial Upper Stage. Galileo is scheduled to be launched aboard Atlantis on space shuttle mission STS-34, Oct. 12, 1989 and sent to the planet Jupiter, a journey which will take more than six years to complete. In December 1995, as the two and one half ton spacecraft orbits Jupiter with its 10 scientific instruments, a probe will be released to parachute into the Jovian atmosphere. Photo Credit: NASA