STS-34 deployed the Galileo spacecraft toward Jupiter.
NASA launched Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-34 from Kennedy Space Center on October 18, 1989. Galileo was the mission’s primary payload, carried in Atlantis’s cargo bay with an attached Inertial Upper Stage rocket. The shuttle released the spacecraft several hours after launch.
Galileo did not fly directly from Earth to Jupiter. Its upper stage placed it on a trajectory toward Venus, and the spacecraft later used gravity assists from Venus and Earth to gain the energy needed to reach the outer Solar System. It eventually entered orbit around Jupiter in 1995.
A common mix-up is STS-30, another Atlantis mission that deployed Magellan toward Venus. STS-34 was the second shuttle flight to deploy a planetary spacecraft and is remembered especially for beginning Galileo’s long journey to Jupiter. Galileo later studied Jupiter, its major moons, and the planet’s atmosphere in unprecedented detail.