No. 42 - Safe Mode Recovery
The spacecraft is now back in routine operations and nominal planning for the upcoming week has already been resumed. The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
| MET (Day) | Date | DOY | VPER# | Main Activity |
| 285 | 20/08/06 | 232 | 121 | Routine science operations |
| 286 | 21/08/06 | 233 | 122 | Routine science operations |
| 287 | 22/08/06 | 234 | 123 | Routine science operations |
| 288 | 23/08/06 | 235 | 124 | Routine science operations |
| 289 | 24/08/06 | 236 | 125 | Routine science operations and Orbit Control Manoeuvre (8.17 m/s) at apocentre |
| 290 | 25/08/06 | 237 | 126 | Routine science operations |
| 291 | 26/08/06 | 238 | 127 | Safe Mode recovery and Routine science operations |
At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 238, 15:00) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 244 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 813 seconds.
Payload Activities
ASPERA
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
MAG
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan. It was switched off by the safe mode at 237.18.16 and was recovered to nominal operation at 238.10.13.
PFS
The instrument is currently OFF and is not included in the routine planning. Next PFS tests in Venus pointing attitude are planned for the first 4 orbits of MTP 6 (24-27 September 2006).
SPICAV
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
VeRA
The USO is nominally powered but muted. During the Safe Mode the USO was powered off for a period of about 16 hours (237.18.16 until 238.10.15). Occultation Observations with USO un-muted took place on DOY 233, 234, and 237.
VIRTIS
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
VMC
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan. At safe mode transition, the instrument was ON. The safing AP powered off the instrument.
Mission Planning
Short Term Planning
Operations of STP16 have been completed successfully and the planning of STP17 was completed in time. A pre-check of the payload requests for STP18 was also successful.
Medium Term Planning
Venus Express Science Operations Centre (VSOC) and Flight Dynamics (FDyn) products for MTP007 are now available and planning has continued. This planning will also include the conjunction phase. MTP007 is currently only being planned for the periods where the Sun-Earth-S/C angle is greater than 3° and is assuming a carry over of 2.1 Gbit in the SSMM from MTP006. For MTP006 and MTP007 no plan of DSN resources is available yet, therefore analysis is continuing with a fake plan assuming worst case observations duration.
Future Milestones
Throughout the next week focus will be on the planning exercise for MTP7 while short term planning for CP18 and pre-checks for CP19 will commence.
An operational strategy for the upcoming solar conjunction phase in October/November 2006 is being further iterated.