No. 22 - 2000 hours of electric propulsion operations28 Apr 2004 09:07 The spacecraft is now in its 278th orbit, in good status and with all functions performing nominally. The new thrusting strategy is well in progress with thrust arcs around perigee for about one third of every revolution. Presently the thrust arcs last for about 13 hours of every 36 hour-orbit. The thrust duration will increase to 18 hours when the orbital period reaches about 50 hours in one and half month.
In this phase of the mission, the electric propulsion system is again at the centre of our attention, as the main purpose is now to increase the apogee of the orbit to get closer to the Moon. The performance of the engine is still very good. At 16 April 2004, the engine had cumulated a total ON time of about 2000 hours, consumed about 32 kg of Xenon and imparted to the spacecraft a velocity increment of about 1440
Orbital/Trajectory informationThe osculating orbital elements are periodically computed by the ESOC specialists. These elements define the so called "osculating orbit" which would be travelled by the spacecraft if at that instant all perturbations, including EP thrust, would cease. So it is an image of the situation at that epoch. In reality the path travelled by the spacecraft is a continuous spiral leading from one orbit to another. The most recent osculating elements are as follows:
Since the start of the mission, the electric propulsion system has changed the orbital parameters as follows:
Contact PointsGiuseppe Racca Bernard H. Foing
Last Update: 18 May 2004
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
- Missions
- Show All Missions
- Mission Home
- Summary
- Fact Sheet
- Objectives
- Mission Team
- Orbit View
- Presentations
- Background Science
- Electric Spacecraft Propulsion
- Moon
- Spacecraft
- 3D Model
- Instruments
- Mission Operations
- Launch Vehicle
- SMART-1 Launch Campaign
- Launch Phase
- Lunar Capture
- Lunar Orbit
- Lunar Impact
- Status Reports
- Mission Background
- Science Operations
- Data Archive
- Resources
- News Archive
- Multimedia Gallery
- Publication Archive
- Calendar of Events
- Services
- Contact Us
- Subscribe
- Terms and Conditions
esa.int
