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No. 69 - Start of First Payload Active Checkout

No. 69 - Start of First Payload Active Checkout

Report for Period 17 November to 1 December 2006The reporting period covers two weeks of active cruise, during which the first payload ActiveCheckout (PC4) started.

The campaign started on 22 November with the execution of the passive checkout sequence for the Radio Science Investigation instrument (RSI). Checkout operations for all other instruments started on 23 November with a joint non-interactive set of operations involving all instruments except ROSINA and OSIRIS.

The two navigation cameras were also operated as part of this slot. These operations were executed outside ground coverage. The data acquired during this non-interactive slot were dumped to ground on 27 November. From 28 November until 1 December, all passes have been dedicated to the Lander Philae interactive checkout.

The Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) and SREM remain active in the background throughout the campaign. The other instruments are active for execution of their checkout sequences.

All checkout operations have been executed smoothly, with the exception of the Noisy Channel test of the RPC's Ion and Electron Sensor on 26 November. The sensor is in good condition, however, and a repetition of the test within the next few days is under definition.

In addition, the RPC time synchronisation failed upon two consecutive power-on of the instrument on 25 and 26 November, resulting in more than one day of data remaining unsynchronised. This was the first time that such an incident occurred for any of the instruments. Initial investigations are pointing to tight timing of data handling commands within the RPC power-on OBCP.

Manual workarounds are being defined to avoid that the problem reoccurs during the Active Checkout campaign.

A total of 6 New Norcia passes of 4 to 12 hours commanding were taken during the reporting period, one of which is for tracking only. In addition one Delta-DOR measurement was performed with the New Norcia/Cebreros baseline. 5 tracking passes of 4 hours and 1 delta-DOR track have been taken with DSN.

NNO
Pass
Date DOY Main Activity
996 20.11.06 324 Tracking pass
998 22.11.06 326 RSI Checkout (PC4) - Start PC4 post-pass
1003 27.11.06 331 First PC4 Data Dumps;
TC Link Timeout to 4 days
1004 28.11.06 332 Lander PC4 - pass1
1005 29.11.06 333 Lander PC4 - pass2
1006 30.11.06 334 Lander PC4 - pass3

At the end of the reporting period (DOY 335) Rosetta was at 298.2 million km from Earth (1.99 AU; one-way signal travel time was 16 minutes 34 seconds). The distance to the Sun was 164.2 million km (1.10 AU).

Spacecraft

Payload
Following the RSI Passive Checkout on DOY 326, the first non-interactive PC4 block started on DOY 327. This block was executed outside ground station coverage and involved all instruments except OSIRIS and ROSINA. The retrieval of the data corresponding to this first block was completed as expected on DOY 332. All operations scheduled during this block had executed nominally, with the exception of some RPC operations.

The first interactive PC4 activities took place between DOY 332 and 335. This slot was dedicated to Philae checkout operations. All operations ran nominally.

SREM and RPC remain active continuously throughout the Active Checkout scenario, with the exception of occasional RPC switch-off when required by other instruments.

Lander Philae
As part of its first interactive slot between DOY 332 and 335, the Philae instruments underwent the following activities:

Instrument

DOY 332/333

DOY 333/334

DOY 334/335

APXS

-

-

-

CIVA

LFT

SW upload and validation

-

CONSERT

-

-

-

COSAC

-

MS and GC measurements Additional GC measurements
MUPUS

-

SW update

-

Ptolemy

-

Mass
spectrometer conditioning preparation

Completion of mass spectrometer conditioning 1.
Conditioning part 2

ROLIS

-

SW update SW validation
ROMAP

-

-

-

SD2

-

-

-

SESAME

-

-

Cruise Functional Test 2

All operations performed as expected.


Future Milestones

The Mars Swingby Phase formally started on 28 July. The actual swingby will take place on 25 February 2007, followed by a Deep Space Manoeuvre in April 2007.

The first Payload Active Checkout (PC4) will last four weeks, with the last operations finishing on 22 December. The next short-term activities include a thermal characterisation on 27 December, an observation of asteroid Lutetia by OSIRIS between 2 and 4 January 2007, and a test of the pre-eclipse Mars observation attitude on 7 January 2007.

Last Update: 1 September 2019
28-Mar-2024 15:03 UT

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