ESA Science & Technology - No. 98 - Passive Cruise

The spacecraft is currently configured in passive cruise mode (near Sun hibernation mode - NSHM) with attitude control on thrusters and gyros switched OFF. The active cruise mode will be resumed at the beginning of July in preparation of the payload check-out 8.

A total of four New Norcia (NNO) passes were taken during this period with nominal performance:

At the end of the reporting period (DoY 158) Rosetta was at 159 million km from Earth (1.06 AU) and the one-way signal travel time was 533 seconds. The distance to the Sun was 268 million km (1.79 AU).

As from DoY 151 (30 May 2008) Rosetta has entered a range of Sun distances that is beyond any distance reached so far in the mission. Rosetta's last record was from December 2005 when it was at 1.756 AU from the Sun.

Spacecraft

Payload
During the reporting period there was no payload activity:

ALICE
The instrument is OFF.

CONSERT
The instrument is OFF.

COSIMA
The instrument is OFF.

GIADA
The instrument is OFF.

MIDAS
The instrument is OFF.

MIRO
The instrument is OFF.

OSIRIS
The instrument is OFF.

ROSINA
The instrument is OFF.

RPC
The instrument is OFF.

RSI
The instrument is muted.

VIRTIS
The instrument is OFF.

LANDER Philae
The instrument is OFF.

SREM
Since DoY 086/2008 the accumulation settings are configured for passive cruise mode.

Future Milestones

The cruise phase continues towards asteroid Steins that will be encountered in early September 2008. The spacecraft will remain configured in passive cruise mode (NSHM) until beginning of July, when it will be reconfigured to Active Cruise Mode for the execution of the payload checkout 8 in preparation of the asteroid Steins fly-by.

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Legal disclaimer
This report is based on the ESOC mission operations report, WOR #98. Please see the copyright section of the legal disclaimer (bottom of this page) for terms of use.