No. 20 - Ongoing activities
Several activities were carried out in the area of AOCS and spacecraft dynamics: first a characterization test of the acquisition capability of the Star Tracker in "dust" setting at various spacecraft rates (3 & 4 July); then a change in the default GSEP biased Earth pointing attitude to achieve better communications geometry (visibility of LGA-F) on 5 July. Finally a long disturbance torques characterization test over the period 6 - 8 July, in which the spacecraft was slewed very slowly in the orientations it will have in the next three months to observe the effect on the reaction wheel load.
Four New Norcia ground station passes were skipped, as planned, on 2, 3, 6 and 7 July.
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
|
Mission Day |
Date |
DOY |
Main Activity |
|
123 |
02/03.07.04 |
184/185 |
Skipped ground contact |
|
124 |
03/04.07.04 |
185/186 |
Skipped ground contact |
|
125 |
04/05.07.04 |
186/187 |
Monitoring pass: Star Tracker dust characterisation |
|
126 |
05/06.07.04 |
187/188 |
Monitoring pass: verify GSEP orientation change |
|
127 |
06/07.07.04 |
188/189 |
Skipped ground contact |
|
128 |
07/08.07.04 |
189/190 |
Skipped ground contact |
|
129 |
08/09.07.04 |
190/191 |
Monitoring pass: Disturb. Torques characterisation |
At the end of the last New Norcia pass in the reporting period (DOY 191) Rosetta was at 64.2 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 3 minutes 34 seconds.