Asset Publisher

No. 130 – Philae lander solar generator test

No. 130 – Philae lander solar generator test

Report for Period 13 February to 26 February 2010The reporting period covers two weeks of Rosetta mission operations. This period was dedicated to further payload maintenance activities in preparation of the upcoming mission phases and the 12th payload check-out, which is planned for April-May 2010. The RTOF, the time of flight sensor, one of the three sensors of ROSINA, the neutral and ion mass spectrometer, has shown significant improvements during these tests. The solar generator of the Philae lander was successfully tested on 24 February by exposing it to the Sun for nearly 1 hour.

During the reporting period, mission operations have been conducted with support of the ESA New Norcia (NNO) ground station.

DOY Date Pass Main Activity
045 14/02/10 NNO 2181

Monitoring pass

047 16/02/10 NNO 2183

ROSINA RTOF test

048 17/02/10

NNO 2184

Monitoring pass

049 18/02/10

NNO 2185

Monitoring pass

054 23/02/10

NNO 2190

ROSINA RTOF test

055 24/02/10

NNO 2191

Philae lander solar generator test

056 25/02/10 NNO 2192

ROSINA RTOF test

DOY = Day of year

At the end of the reporting period (DoY 057) Rosetta was at 93.3 million km from Earth (0.62 AU) and the one-way signal travel time was 311 seconds. The distance to the Sun was 237.85 million km (1.58 AU).

Spacecraft

Payload

ALICE
The instrument is currently OFF.

CONSERT
The instrument is currently OFF.

COSIMA
The instrument is currently OFF.

GIADA
The instrument is currently OFF.

MIDAS
The instrument is currently OFF.

MIRO
The instrument is currently OFF.

OSIRIS
The instrument is currently OFF.

ROSINA
The instrument is currently OFF. The instrument software was upgraded to v7.4 and successfully tested in multiple slots during the reporting period. The new software is driving correctly the high voltage of the instrument's RTOF sensor. Rosina's COPS sensor was activated during the test of the Philae lander's solar generator on DoY 055 to monitor outgassing from the spacecraft.

RPC
The instrument is currently OFF. On DoY 055 the instrument was activated for monitoring purposes during the lander's solar generator test.

RSI
The ultra-stable oscillator is ON/muted since DoY 032/2010.

VIRTIS
The instrument is currently OFF.

LANDER Philae
The instrument is currently OFF. The instrument was activated on DoY 055 to perform a characterisation of its solar generator. Between 14:33 UT and 15:15 UT, the Philae lander was isolated from the Rosetta orbiter in terms of power, drawing current from its own battery and solar arrays while being exposed to the Sun. The collected data are now being processed for detailed analysis.

SREM
The instrument is ON with standard settings since DoY 032/2010.

Future Milestones

Further tests of the ROSINA instrument are planned in the next reporting period, together with a characterisation of the spacecraft dynamics for the flyby of asteroid Lutetia. Although this characterisation is a pure test of the spacecraft dynamics, it is also an opportunity to perform monitoring and characterisation activities with few of the instruments.

Rosetta continues cruising towards asteroid Lutetia. The encounter with the asteroid will take place in July 2010. The Rosetta spacecraft is configured in normal mode, in which it will nominally remain until the deep space hibernation entry in June 2011.


---
Legal disclaimer
This report is based on the ESOC mission operations report, WOR #130. Please see the copyright section of the legal disclaimer (bottom of this page) for terms of use.

Last Update: 1 September 2019
29-Mar-2024 15:41 UT

ShortUrl Portlet

Shortcut URL

https://sci.esa.int/s/WnDzbpA

Images And Videos

Related Publications

Related Links

See Also

Documentation

Further Readings