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Main events and Activities

On 3 March, Mars Express performed the closest ever flyby of Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons. The spacecraft passed Phobos at an altitude of about 67 kilometres. The flyby was part of the Phobos flyby campaign, which started on 16 February and concluded on 26 March. The campaign, with a total of twelve flybys, provided a unique opportunity for scientific investigations of the small moon. Near the end of the campaign, on 21 and 22 March, spacecraft manoeuvres changed the Mars Express orbit to its planned final 88:25 resonance. This orbit resonance is more favourable for Mars observations by the optical instruments over the next few years of the mission.

Main events and Activities

The Phobos flyby campaign has started. The campaign's first flyby was on 16 February when Mars Express passed the Martian moon at an altitude of 991 km. Three more Phobos flybys were completed within the following 12 days at increasingly smaller altitudes. The campaign continues with eight more flybys planned in March, and the closest flyby will be on 3 March. A set of manoeuvres on 15 and 22 February changed the spacecraft's orbit to a 131:37 resonance to facilitate the close Phobos flybys. This orbit resonance is an intermediate step to the final 88:25 resonance, to be reached in March at the end of the Phobos observation campaign.

Main events and Activities

This report covers two months of Mars Express mission operations, from 1 December 2009 to 1 February 2010. The eighth Mars Express occultation season, which started already on 20 September 2009, and the eighth Mars Express eclipse season, which started 10 November 2009, both are ongoing. On 29 January Mars was at opposition.

Main events and activities

On 10 November the eighth Mars Express eclipse season started, which will last until 19 April 2010. The eighth Mars Express occultation season has been running already since 20 September and will continue until 15 August 2010.

Main events and activities

On 2 October, ESA's Science programme Committee (SPC) approved an extension of mission operations, pushing back the mission end date to 31 December 2012 (with a confirmation mid-term review in 2010). On 5 October, a small orbit correction (with a delta-V of 4 cm/s) was executed to adjust the ground track for the HRSC instrument.

Main events and activities

The Mars Express Science Working Team has decided on a final orbit change to 88:25 resonance in March 2010, after one month on a 131:37 intermediate orbit to secure a Phobos observation campaign.

Mission Status

Much effort was needed in preparation for the 2008 eclipse season which, once again, was almost coincident with Mars being furthest from the Sun; making it an operationally very challenging period for the Mars Express mission.

On 2 October 2007 Mars Express successfully performed a close flyby of Phobos coming to within ~140 km of the moon. During the flyby a number of the HRSC observations were unfortunately lost due to an overload of the system. The impact of this is relatively small as HRSC already has acquired a lot of detailed Phobos data during past observations. The data from MARSIS for this close flyby, which are unique, are being analyzed.

The spacecraft has been operating nominally, and with the Earth-Mars distance decreasing, the data rate is continuously increasing, allowing for a commensurate increase in data return.

Since the last status report, the Mars Express spacecraft, subsystems and payload continued functioning well (after more than 3 years in space), with the planned Medium Term Plans MTP31 to MTP33 successfully executed. The planning of the upcoming MTP 34 and 35 has been completed, and planning of MTP 36 and 37 is ongoing.

Early June saw the celebration of 3 years in space for Mars-Express. Most of the summer has been spent on preparing for, and actually entering the power wise very challenging eclipse/aphelion season. The specially designed Survival Mode (SUMO) was tested and so far successfully used to safely sail through the longest eclipses.

Since the last status report, the Mars Express spacecraft, subsystems and payload continued recording healthy conditions, with the planned Medium Term Plans MTP25 to MTP30 successfully executed.

Final commissioning operations for the MARSIS instrument - primarily the commissioning and calibration of the monopole antenna - is being completed. Following these activities, the MARSIS radar will be fully operational.

Final commissioning operations for the MARSIS instrument - primarily the commissioning and calibration of the monopole antenna - have been planned and started in February 2006. Following these activities, the MARSIS radar will be fully operational. At the end of November, a successful orbit correction manoeuvre was performed in order to return from the current free-drift orbit to a frozen orbit.

The third quarter of 2005 was marked by the start of commissioning of the now fully deployed MARSIS instrument, and by the integration of MARSIS into the routine mission planning and operations cycle.

At the end of May 2005, a mass memory (SSMM) software upload was performed successfully prior to the second and third MARSIS booms deployments, with no impact on science return. Following successful and complete MARSIS deployment in the May-June time period, routine science operations of all of the Mars Express orbiter instruments were resumed on 4 July.

Overall Mission and Payload Status

The Mars Express spacecraft and payload instruments are in good condition. Mars Express payload operations were stopped on 27 April in order to perform an avoidance manoeuvre with Mars Odyssey as well as to start the MARSIS deployment phase.

The first quarter of 2005 largely was marked by the start of the missions' second eclipse season. Some of the longest eclipses left only very little margin in which science operations could be conducted, yet this was successfully achieved and, with the eclipse durations getting shorter, science data taking was gradually resumed at full speed.

The last quarter of 2004 was largely a very productive period of science data taking, except for a 1-week period around early-December, during which an anomaly with the Solid State Mass Memory (SSMM) prevented nominal operations, and some antenna problems towards end-December. The SSMM anomaly, which occurred twice in a row, is most probably understood and can be fixed with a software patch.