No. 130 – Philae lander solar generator test
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.
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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.