10 uses four SNAP-19 radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). They are positioned on two three-rod trusses, each in length and 120 degrees apart. This was expected to be a safe distance from the sensitive scientific experiments carried on board. Combined, the RTGs provided 155 W at launch, and decayed to 140 W in transit to Jupiter. The spacecraft required 100 W to power all systems. The generators are powered by the radioisotope fuel plutonium-238, which is housed in a multi-layer capsule protected by a graphite heat shield. The pre-launch requirement for the SNAP-19 was to provide power for two years in space; this was greatly exceeded during the mission. The plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.74 years, so that after 29 years the radiation being generated by the RTGs was at 80% of its intensity at launch. However, steady deterioration of the thermocouple junctions led to a more rapid decay in electrical power generation, and by 2001 the total power output was 65 W. As a result, later in the mission only selected instruments could be operated at any one time. The space probe includes a redundant system of transceivers, one attached to the narrow-beam, high-gain antenna, the other to an omni-antenna and medium-gain antenna. The parabolic dish for the high-gain antenna is in diameter and made from an aluminum honeycomb sandwich material. The spacecraft was spun about an axis that is parallel to the axis of this antenna so that it could remain oriented toward the Earth. Each transceiver is an 8 W one and transmits data across the S-band using 2110 MHz for the uplink from Earth and 2292 MHz for the downlink to Earth with the Deep Space Network tracking the signal. Data to be transmitted is passed through a convolutional encoder so that most communication errors could be corrected by the receiving equipment on Earth. The data transmission rate at launch was 256 bit/s, with the rate degrading by about 1.27 millibit/s for each day during the mission. Much of the computation for the mission is performed on Earth and transmitted to the spacecraft, where it was able to retain in memory up to five commands of the 222 possible entries by ground controllers. The spacecraft includes two command decoders and a command distribution unit, a very limited form of a processor, to direct operations on the spacecraft. This system requires that mission operators prepare commands long