No. 2 - Ongoing LEOP Activities
The Venus Express Launch and Early Orbit (LEOP) operations continue to run very smoothly with good support from the ESA and NASA DSN ground stations.
Pass 2 Activities
Pass 2 activities encompassed loading of the On-Board Control Procedures (OBCPs), loading of the Service 12 and the dump of the Safe Guard Memory (SGM). The planned Reaction Wheels off-loading was not required. All foreseen Pass 2 activities were already completed about two hours after hand-over from Team A to Team B. The remainder pass activities were quiescent, in view of a well performing spacecraft and ground segment.
Pass 3 Activities
Activities started with the preparation for testing the Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM-0). Given the slight over-performance from Soyuz-Fregat, the TCM-0 was conducted in the direction of Earth for minimal fuel use.
The slew to position was enabled at 05:20 UCT, started 05:43 UCT and was completed 06:13 UCT.
Subsequently, TCM-0 started at 06:38:52 UCT with a manoeuvre duration of 48 sec and a magnitude of 0.5 m/sec. Post manoeuvre assessment, based on Doppler data, indicated that the manoeuvre duration was about 1 sec less than commanded and revealed a negligible error in performance.
By 07:33 UCT the spacecraft had been slewed back to the starting attitude. This completed the foreseen activities for pass 3.