ESA Science & Technology - Status Report Archive
Status report archive
Status report archive
Mission StatusThe spacecraft and instruments are operating nominally. In connection with the Perseid meteor shower in August 2004, the electron instrument PEACE on C3 detected anomalously high counts and one of the sensors (HEEA) was automatically switched off. It was later switched back on and is presently working nominally.
Published: 29 November 2004
Mission StatusXMM-Newton operations continue to run smoothly. The autumn 2004 eclipse season went by without any problems. The upgrade of the overall ground segment from SCOS-1b to SCOS-2000 is being faced with a delay on some software deliveries, but it is believed that the overall schedule (final switchover on 1-April-2005) can be maintained.
Published: 29 November 2004
Mission StatusThe Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was successfully inserted in orbit around Saturn on 1 July and continues to perform nominally. On 30 June, coming from below, it crossed the rings with its High-Gain Antenna oriented such as to shield the most delicate parts of the spacecraft from being hit by ring particles.
Published: 29 November 2004
Mission StatusThe spacecraft status is nominal, with the High Gain Antenna (HGA) Z-axis in a fixed position.
Published: 29 November 2004
Mission StatusThe ISO Active Archive Phase Mid-Term Review was held on 14-15 June at ESAC. The Board, composed of external data providers and users, was impressed with the achievements of the ESA and National Data Centres over the past 2.5 years.
Published: 29 November 2004
Mission StatusThe spacecraft and its scientific payload are in good health. Solar Conjunction operations began on 23 August, with the actual Conjunction (the ninth in the 14-year history of themission) occurring on 1 September. At such times, the alignment of the spacecraft, Sun, and Earth is such that the radio communication ray-path passes...
Published: 29 November 2004
The Hubble spacecraft is operating nominally, with the exception of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), one of the five on-board science instruments, which failed on 3 August 2004. The Failure Review Board concluded that the failure was due to the 5V power supply for the mechanism electronics.
Published: 29 November 2004
Report for the period 28 October to 19 November 2004Rosetta continues to fly in cruise mode which it entered 17 October. The AOCS gyro-less estimator was activated on 4 November and has been running since, outside the control loop for validation. This activity required an AOCMS patch in RAM to prevent incorrect use of gyro-less estimator output...
Published: 19 November 2004
Today, 19 November 2004, at 10:58 UTC, SMART-1 passed its second perilune and successfully completed its first orbit around the Moon. The first orbit started on 15 November at 17:47 UTC when SMART-1 passed its first perilune.
Published: 19 November 2004
On 11 November at 10:30 UTC, close to the 331st apogee, SMART-1 will be in the middle of a "weak stability boundary". In this region the spacecraft is neither in an Earth-bound orbit, nor a Moon-bound orbit: it is in no man's land.
Published: 10 November 2004
Report for week 15 to 22 OctoberThe Rosetta commissioning phase was completed in the beginning of the reporting period, with the last main activities on the TTC subsystem, involving MGA pattern calibration and S-band tests with LGA and HGA.
Published: 2 November 2004
At 03:30 UT, 27 October 2004 Cassini-Huygens spacecraft successfully executed its flyby of Titan at an altitude of around 1200 km.
Published: 27 October 2004
On 25 October SMART-1 fired, for the last time, the electric propulsion engine. This small correction manoeuvre of about 4 hours was necessary to correct the slight over-performance of the engine during the last long burn of 100 hours (10-14 October) during the third resonance.
Published: 27 October 2004
Report for week 8 to 15 October 2004In this last week of the commissioning phase the spacecraft spent most of the time in contact with the ground, using DSN passes during the day and New Norcia during the night. This allowed an intense and ambitious operations plan to be executed. All planned payload commissioning activities were completed in...
Published: 18 October 2004
The second satellite in the China-ESA Double Star project was declared ready to study the Earth's magnetosphere. The Double Star project consists of two spacecraft that orbit the Earth and study the Earth's magnetosphere, in concert with ESA's four spacecraft Cluster mission. The Double Star spacecraft are known as TC-1 and TC-2, or translating...
Published: 15 October 2004
Report for week 1 to 8 October 2004During the reporting period, the Pointing Scenario part 2 was completed and the last Lander commissioning block started.
Published: 11 October 2004
Overall Mission and Payload StatusMost scientific payload operations were suspended between 22 August and 27 September, due to a period of solar conjunction. During this time, however, radio science (MaRS) experiments of the solar corona were carried out. On the egress from conjunction all spacecraft systems were nominal.
Published: 7 October 2004
Report for week 24 September - 1 October 2004The reporting period consisted fully of the continuation of the Pointing Scenario part 2, which started on 23 September and is due to finish on 2 October.
Published: 5 October 2004
On 27 September 2004, SMART-1 celebrated its first birthday in space. After travelling about 78 million kilometres, the spacecraft is in good health with all subsystems functioning as expected.
Published: 1 October 2004
Report for week 17 to 24 September 2004In the reporting period the payload commissioning activities continued, with the completion of the OSIRIS functional commissioning, the execution of the first part of the ROSINA functional commissioning (RTOF and DFMS high voltages), the first Interference Scenario and the start of the long Pointing Scenario.
Published: 28 September 2004
—
20 Items per Page