The Way to Amalthea also known as Destination: Amaltheia is an early science fiction short story by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky written in 1959. An English translation called Destination: Amaltheia was published in a collection of the same name of Russian sf writers in 1963 by Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow.

Plot summary

A cargo spaceship, propelled by a photon engine with a large reflective mirror ("sail"), visits the Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

 system to deliver a cargo to a manned science station on Amalthea

Amalthea (moon)

Amalthea is the third moon of Jupiter in order of distance from the planet. It was discovered on September 9, 1892, by Edward Emerson Barnard and named after Amalthea, a nymph in Greek mythology. It is also known as '....

. Damaged by meteorites, the spaceship falls into Jupiter, but survives the pressure and floats in the dense atmosphere; the crew manage to work around the damaged mirror and start the main engine to escape Jupiter and finally reach Amalthea.