No. 22 - New Avionics On-board Software Activated
The activation of the new software involved commanding a re-boot of the on-board Data Management and Attitude and Orbit Control processors on 22 July, which automatically switched the spacecraft into Safe Mode. It was the first time that Rosetta entered Safe Mode in flight and everything worked very smoothly, from the automatic on-board reconfiguration activities to the six hours of manual recovery controlled from ground.
Since the beginning of the week daily passes were taken, in order to carry out the critical software uplink and activation procedures. Daily passes are foreseen over the next week to monitor the behaviour of the spacecraft with the new on-board software and carry out some in-flight confidence tests.
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period
|
Mission Day |
Date |
DOY |
Main Activity |
|
137 |
16/17.07.04 |
198/199 | Complete uplink of patch TC files |
|
138 |
17/18.07.04 |
199/200 | Skipped pass |
|
139 |
18/19.07.04 |
200/201 | Patch SIT and DMS processor EEPROM |
|
140 |
19/20.07.04 |
201/202 | Dump DMS and patch AOCS processor EEPROM |
|
141 |
20/21.07.04 |
202/203 | Dump AOCS processor EEPROM |
|
142 |
21/22.07.04 |
203/204 | Monitoring pass |
|
143 |
22/23.07.04 |
204/205 | Activate on-board software v7 and Safe Mode recovery |
At the end of the last New Norcia pass in the reporting period (DOY 205) Rosetta was at 69.7 million kilometres from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 3 minutes 52 seconds.