This page contains information about the NASA research aircraft "Galileo"; a Convair 990 named by NASA in honor of the great Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist Galileo Galilei. This Convair 990 aircraft was commissioned by NASA for the eclipse expedition of May 30, 1965. My father, Leo F. Buczynski, was the crew chief on this expedition and the pictures and movie clips on this page were made by him.The objective of the eclipse expedition was to "chase" the total eclipse path in an effort to provide more viewing time for astronomers to study the sun during totality. The fastest jetliner of the time was chosen; the Convair 990. At Nasa's direction, Convair modified 990 N5601G pictured below by cutting new windows in the upper fuselage for the telescopes and instruments to look through toward the sun. Crusing at an altitude of 39,500 feet and attaining a ground speed of 585 miles per hour, 9 minutes 42 seconds of eclipse totality viewing time was made available to the scientists and instrumentation on board the aircraft. Additional expedition information.
Following the expedition, the aircraft was used for a number of other NASA research projects. Galileo was the first of the 990 aircraft used by Nasa for research projects. Unfortunately, this aircraft met its end in a mid-air accident in 1973 at Moffett field.
Aircraft Specifications
Accident Report
Picture of "Galileo II" (bottom of page)
Convair 880 and 990 Photo Gallery
Goleta Air & Space Museum
A History of Ames Research Center 1940-1965
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The following video clips show the aircraft is action. The low resolution version is split into two parts for those using dialup connections. In part 1, the aircraft is seen taxing in after a flight and during some post flight inspections. Part 2 shows in flight wing views and some of the instrumentation that was installed on the aircraft for this expedition. The medium resolution clip contains the same scenes in better quality.A MPEG web browser plug-in or seperate video player such as Windows Media Player, Real Player or QuickTime must be installed on your computer to view the video clips. The video clips can also be downloaded and saved for later viewing by right clicking on a link and selecting the "Save As" item.
Low Resolution Part 1 - 7.2 mb
Low Resolution Part 2 - 8.8 mbMedium Resolution - 58 mb
The operational report TM X-1234; NASA 1965 Airborne Solar Eclipse Expedition, is available here in medium (17 mb) and low (7 mb) resolution PDF format. This report contains a detailed description of the expedition and includes many photos and illustrations.
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Copyright © 2005 Don Buczynski
E-mail me: Don Buczynski