ESA Science & Technology - No. 133 - Start of payload check-out 12

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

At the end of the reporting period (DOY 113) Rosetta was at 222 million km from Earth (1.48 AU) and the one-way signal travel time was 740 seconds. The distance to the Sun was 312.6 million km (2.09 AU).

Spacecraft

Payload

ALICE
The instrument is currently ON as part of the PC12 activities. The passive check-out procedure was run on DOY 112.

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. On DOY 113 the software of the instrument was updated to version 7.7 as part of the PC12 activities.

RPC
The instrument is currently OFF.

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.

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

Future Milestones

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

The payload check-out (PC12) activities will continue for the next three weeks, during which most of the instruments will be activated for a final check/update before the flyby of asteroid Lutetia.

The navigation campaign for the Lutetia flyby will begin at the end of May 2010. The closest approach to the asteroid, on 10 July 2010, is currently expected at 15:44:53 UTC.

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Legal disclaimer
This report is based on the ESOC mission operations report, WOR #133. Please see the copyright section of the legal disclaimer (bottom of this page) for terms of use.