WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- NASA's Galileo spacecraft will end its 14-year mission with a big bang when it crashes into Jupiter next Sunday.
Galileo's on-board computer will steer it into Jupiter's stormy atmosphere, where the heat generated by the entrance will vaporize the $1.5 billion spacecraft, NASA announced.
NASA officials said the crash is necessary to keep the robotic explorer from contaminating Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, with bacteria from Earth. It was Galileo that detected subsurface salt water on that moon of Jupiter.
Galileo was deployed from the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1989 and it ceased operations in late February.
NASA officials have bragged about Galileo's successes, saying the explorer shed light on asteroids, discovered a fragmented comet and supplied information about the four largest moons of Jupiter.
The demise of Galileo will be accompanied by live commentary on the NASA Web site, nasa.gov.
