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The Rosetta spacecraft is in active cruise mode and preparation activities for the observation of the NASA Deep Impact probe's encounter with comet Tempel-1 continued over the reporting period.

The Rosetta spacecraft is in active cruise mode in preparation for the next science phase planned for end June. The most important activity in the reporting period was a full reload of the Solid State Mass Memory (SSMM) onboard software, carried out in the period 7 to 9 June.

The spacecraft is in active cruise mode in preparation for Rosetta's next active science phase planned for end June. In the reporting period several thermal characterisation and reconfiguration activities were carried out.

The main activity in this three week period was the in-flight commissioning of the Near Sun Hibernation Mode (NSHM), during which the Rosetta spacecraft spent days in this special low activity mode, with attitude controlled via Star Tracker and thrusters only (gyroscopes and reaction wheels are inactive).

The reporting period was dominated by the preparation and execution of the first Earth swingby manoeuvre of the Rosetta spacecraft. The sequence started with a trajectory correction manoeuvre successfully executed on 17 February, which put the spacecraft on its final course to Earth. Thanks to the precision of this manoeuvre, a back-up manoeuvre planned for 24 February could be cancelled.

The main activity in the reporting period was the successful first in-flight test of the Near Sun Hibernation Mode (NSHM), during which the spacecraft spent five days in this special low activity mode, with attitude controlled via Star Tracker and thrusters only (gyroscopes and reaction wheels are inactive).

The reporting period covers the last instrument observation in Rosetta's Earth swing-by 1 mission phase, the first Payload Passive Checkout and preparation of the Near Sun Hibernation Mode (NSHM) in-flight test.

Report for the period 11 to 25 March 2005

The reporting period covers the last few post-Earth swing-by spacecraft configuration activities and some delta-commissioning operations on the payload as agreed in the Commissioning Review of December 2004.

Report for the period 25 February to 11 March 2005

Report for the period 17 to 27 January 2005

The spacecraft is in cruise mode. In the reporting period a number of outstanding troubleshooting activities were carried out, in addition to the routine flight operations and monitoring tasks.

Rosetta continues to fly in cruise mode which it entered 17 October. The AOCS gyro-less estimator was activated on 4 November and has been running since, outside the control loop for validation. This activity required an AOCMS patch in RAM to prevent incorrect use of gyro-less estimator output by the FDIR when the gyro-less and gyro-stellar estimators are ON in parallel. So far, the performance of the gyro-less estimator is good.

Report for week 15 to 22 October

The Rosetta commissioning phase was completed in the beginning of the reporting period, with the last main activities on the TTC subsystem, involving MGA pattern calibration and S-band tests with LGA and HGA.

In this last week of the commissioning phase the spacecraft spent most of the time in contact with the ground, using DSN passes during the day and New Norcia during the night. This allowed an intense and ambitious operations plan to be executed. All planned payload commissioning activities were completed in the reporting period, including additional slots scheduled for COSIMA and RPC. The ROSINA final commissioning pass originally planned for 11 October has been cancelled due to on-going investigations on the instrument. Several commissioning and configuration activities were carried out on the spacecraft subsystems.

During the reporting period, the Pointing Scenario part 2 was completed and the last Lander commissioning block started.

The reporting period consisted fully of the continuation of the Pointing Scenario part 2, which started on 23 September and is due to finish on 2 October.

In the reporting period the payload commissioning activities continued, with the completion of the OSIRIS functional commissioning, the execution of the first part of the ROSINA functional commissioning (RTOF and DFMS high voltages), the first Interference Scenario and the start of the long Pointing Scenario.

In the reporting period the payload commissioning activities continued, with the first part of the Pointing Scenario, covering two days of VIRTIS operations with MIRO, MIDAS and RSI activities, the final MIDAS functional commissioning and the start of the OSIRIS functional commissioning. All activities have been executed according to schedule and completed successfully.

In the reporting period daily contact with the spacecraft was established to allow the completion of payload software updates and the start of the second and last part of the Commissioning Phase.