No. 52 - Spacecraft Monitoring and Maintenance
On the spacecraft subsystems side, minor maintenance activities were executed, i.e. gyro drift compensation for IMP B, the first periodic dump of avionics standard parameters. Reaction wheel offloading is now executed once every two weeks.
A total of 3 New Norcia passes were taken over the reporting period.
| NNO Pass | Date | DOY | Main Activity |
| 634 | 24.11.05 |
328 |
Monitor pass |
| 642 | 02.12.05 |
336 |
Monitor pass |
| 648 | 08.12.05 |
342 |
RPC IES test, Avionics Dumps, Gyro drift comp |
At the end of the reporting period (DOY 343) Rosetta was at 327 million km from the Earth (2.19 AU; one-way signal travel time was 18 minutes 11 seconds). The distance to Sun was 262 million km (1.75 AU).
Future Milestones
Preparation for the first Solar Conjunction continues. The spacecraft will be at an angular distance from the Sun below 5 degrees between mid March and mid May 2006, with a minimum separation angle of about 0.3 degrees on the 13th.
Just before the start of the Solar Conjunction the third Payload Passive Checkout (PC2) will take place in March 2006.