No. 136 - Payload check-out 12 concluded
During the reporting period, mission operations have been conducted with support of the ESA New Norcia (NNO) ground station.
| DOY | Date | Pass | Main Activity |
| 130 | 10/05/10 | NNO 2266 |
PC12 - COSIMA and ROSINA |
| 131 | 11/05/10 | NNO 2267 |
PC12 - Philae lander |
| 132 | 12/05/10 | NNO 2268 |
PC12 - Philae lander |
| 137 | 17/05/10 | NNO 2273 |
PC12 - Monitoring pass |
| 139 | 19/05/10 | NNO 2275 | Monitoring pass |
| 141 | 21/05/10 |
NNO 2277 |
Monitoring pass |
|
DOY = Day of year | |||
At the end of the reporting period (DOY 141) Rosetta was at 303.7 million km from Earth (2.03 AU) and the one-way signal travel time was 1013 seconds (16 minutes and 53 seconds). The distance to the Sun was 347.88 million km (2.32 AU).
Since 14 May 2010 (DOY 134) Rosetta has broken its own record of Sun distance, which was from 17 December 2008 and stood at 2.26 AU. Two more milestones will be reached just after the Lutetia flyby this July, when Rosetta, in a period of a few days, will break the record Sun distance for a solar array powered spacecraft (held by NASA's Stardust at 2.72 AU) and also its own record of Earth distance (3.25 AU).
Spacecraft
Payload
ALICE
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period the instrument was activated for an interference test with ROSINA and MIRO.
CONSERT
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period the instrument was activated for test purposes, including an interference test with ROSINA.
COSIMA
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period the instrument was activated for a checkout as part of the PC12 activities.
GIADA
The instrument is currently OFF.
MIDAS
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period the instrument was activated for a test with the dust collector.
MIRO
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period the instrument was activated for an interference test with ALICE and ROSINA and for a re-validation of the patch on-board control procedures (OBCP).
OSIRIS
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period it was activated for imaging at low Sun aspect angles and for stellar calibration.
ROSINA
The instrument is currently OFF. It was activated several times during the reporting period for various activities, which included: an interference test with ALICE and MIRO; upload of software version 7.8 to the redundant side; an interference test with CONSERT; test of combined operations with the instrument's two mass spectrometers and pressure sensor (RTOF, DFMS & COPS).
RPC
The instrument is currently OFF.
RSI
The ultra-stable oscillator (USO) is ON/muted since DOY 032/2010.
VIRTIS
The instrument is currently OFF.
LANDER Philae
The instrument is currently OFF. During the reporting period several tests were successfully conducted as part of the PC12 activities. At the end of the check-out phase the command and data management system (CDMS) software was rolled back to v6.98 for the Lutetia flyby operations. Version 8.07 will be re-uplinked later in the year for final validation.
SREM
The instrument is ON with standard settings since DOY 032/2010.
Future Milestones
Rosetta continues cruising towards asteroid Lutetia. The closest approach to the asteroid is currently expected on 10 July 2010 at 15:44:53 UTC. The Rosetta spacecraft is configured in normal mode, in which it will nominally remain until the deep space hibernation entry in June 2011.
The navigation campaign for the Lutetia flyby will start at the end of May 2010. The campaign will be supported by ground stations from the ESA tracking station network (ESTRACK) and the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN), with the navigation camera and OSIRIS camera on-board Rosetta taking images of the asteroid twice a week as from 31 May (DOY 151).
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Legal disclaimer
This report is based on the ESOC mission operations report, WOR #136. Please see the copyright section of the legal disclaimer (bottom of this page) for terms of use.