In Brief:

Galileo's farewell flight around a giant moon

(CNN) -- The Galileo probe will make its closet pass to the moon Callisto during its extended tour of the Jupiter system. The NASA spacecraft will skim over the planet-sized, crater-packed satellite at an altitude of about 76 miles (123 km) on Friday, according to NASA.

Mission engineers will use the maneuver to position the NASA probe ahead of an autumn rendezvous with Io, a volcanic moon closer to Jupiter that continuously reshapes itself through fiery eruptions.

The latter flyby is intended to help determine whether Io generates its own magnetic field, said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the probe.

Galileo has endured punishing amounts of radiation since arriving in the Jupiter system in 1995. Its mission was expected to end in 1997, but it continues to beam back volumes of images of the planet and its moons.

Mission engineers plan to send the resilient robot ship on a fatal plunge into Jupiter's crushing atmosphere in 2003.

Italian leads European charge to space station

(CNN) -- Prospective space tourists hoping to follow in the weightless footsteps of Dennis Tito might find their dreams considerably delayed.

The Russian space agency, which recently sent the California tycoon on a Soyuz flight to the international space station, has offered seats on many upcoming Soyuz flights to the station to European Space Agency astronauts.

The agreement between the two agencies, announced Tuesday, calls for ESA astronauts to serve as flight engineers on roughly one mission to space station Alpha each year until 2006.

Some astronauts will stay for a week while others up to three months. Russia had earlier agreed to send Claudie Andre-Deshays of France on a Soyuz flight in October. After her flight, Roberto Vittori of Italy will become the first to fly under the new arrangement.

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