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Rosetta Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre On Route For Mars Flyby
Paris, France (ESA) Feb 15, 2007 The reporting period covers a period of 2 weeks characterised by preparatory activities for the Mars swing-by (MSB) phase. The Mars swing-by phase formally started on 28 July 2006. The actual swing-by will take place on 25 February 2007, followed by a Deep Space Manoeuvre in April 2007. During the reporting period the following activities have been conducted:
- Re-dump of Lander EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) for MSB observations All activities have been conducted according to the plan without problems. The navigation campaign for the Mars swing-by is proceeding according to the plan with radiometric data acquired by ESA's ground station in New Norcia (NNO) and NASA's DSN stations (DSS). At the end of the reporting period (DOY 040) Rosetta was at 317.2 million km from Earth (2.12 AU; one-way signal travel time was 17 minutes 38 seconds). The distance to the Sun was 206.8 million km (1.38 AU).
Spacecraft AOCS: On 9 February (DoY 040) a Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre has been executed between 02:00 and 04:45 as part of the navigation activities for the MSB. The manoeuvre lasted 54 seconds and the fuel consumption was 58.28 g. Payload: The reporting period included the following activities: DoY 029 - Lander Switch ON The Lander Philae has been switched ON to re-dump the EEPROM tables updated for the MSB observations. The operation was successful and the Lander team could confirm the successful update of EEPROM. All the instruments have confirmed their go ahead for the MSB operations. The Lander team still has the possibility to update the execution time of their commands should the closest approach time shift by more than one minute with respect to the value predicted in November. The current deviation is in the order of a few seconds.
Future Milestones The Mars swing-by phase formally started on 28 July 2006. The actual swing-by will take place on 25 February 2007, followed by a Deep Space Manoeuvre in April 2007. Preparation activities for the Mars swing-by will continue in the coming weeks with the following plan:
- DoY 046: Spacecraft pre-configuration for Mars swing-by The navigation campaign will continue its most dense phase with several tracking passes per week and DDOR measurements, both with ESA and DSN stations. The ground segment validation campaign for the Mars swing-by scenario is nearing completion with only one simulation left to be performed. A successful readiness review meeting has been held with the mission management on 2 February. Email This Article
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Tokyo (AFP) Feb 13, 2007Veteran astronaut Koichi Wakata was named Tuesday as the first Japanese to stay long-term in space, and said he hoped to bring ramen noodles to the International Space Station. Wakata, 43, will be carried by a US space shuttle in the fall of 2008 and stay on the International Space Station for about three months to work with US and Russian astronauts, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said. |
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