M 3/13 158 M 3/13 163 M 3/13 165 S 3/16 199 S 3/18 227 S 3/18 227 S 3/19 240 S 3/20 256 S 3/20 258 Accurate recording of the X-band data being sent from Voyager at 115 thousand bits per second required fairly clear weather at the tracking sites. The three Deep Space Network (DSN) stations in California, Spain, and Australia are located at normally dry sites. However, early in the morning, heavy rain at the Australian site interfered with reception of the Voyager signal for fourteen minutes. Fortunately, the loss occurred when the DSN tracking of the spacecraft was being switched from Goldstone, California, to the Australian station. Mission control was able to extend Goldstone coverage for several minutes so that only about three minutes’ worth of data was lost completely. A more positive announcement was made at the press conference that morning by Donald Shemansky of the Ultraviolet Spectroscopy Team: the discovery of a high-energy torus of doubly ionized sulfur (S III) circling Jupiter in the region of Io’s orbit. “We were surprised out of our chairs to see a spectacularly bright emission in the 650-1100 angstrom region, immediately implying that we were looking at a plasma that had to be at a temperature of about 100 000 degrees.” The scientists estimated that the density of this torus must be at least 500 ions per cubic centimeter, and that the power needed to keep this plasma at such a high temperature must be in the neighborhood of 500 billion watts. As Al Hibbs mentioned on “Jupiter Watch” that night, 500 billion watts of power is the total amount of installed generating capacity of the United States. Saturday, March 3. (_Range to Jupiter, 2.5 million kilometers_). Early in the morning the final crossing of the magnetopause took place at 47 R_J, and Voyager finally joined the Jovian system. At the end of the day, the rapidly moving spacecraft crossed the orbit of Callisto, but that satellite itself was on the far side of the planet. Not until the outbound crossing of its orbit on March 6 would closeup views of Callisto be obtained.