No. 49 - Conjunction Period Planning Completed
The outage has caused the following impact at mission level:
- science operations planned between 282.04.20 and 282.16.44 were lost
- USO switched OFF for about 7 hours
- VIRTIS operations were suspended from safe mode onward
The ground segment performance has been nominal throughout the reporting period.
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
| MET (Day) | Date | DOY | VPER# | Main Activity |
| 334 | 08/10/06 | 281 | 170 | Routine science operations |
| 335 | 09/10/06 | 282 | 171 | Recovery after Safe Mode #5 |
| 336 | 10/10/06 | 283 | 172 | Update of TM bit rate to 22853bps |
| 337 | 11/10/06 | 284 | 173 | Partial dump of PM3 RAM, ACM B switched on and period of generation of YAC00133 updated to 16 seconds |
| 338 | 12/10/06 | 285 | 174 | LFLV commanded to close |
| 339 | 13/10/06 | 286 | 175 |
Full dump of PM3 RAM, |
| 340 | 14/10/06 | 287 | 176 | Routine science operations |
At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 287, 16:00z) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 256 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 855 seconds.
Science Update
The following set of images has been released since the previous status report.
20 October 2006
VIRTIS - Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer
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Date: 22 July 2006 |
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Date: 29 July 2006 |
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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.
PFS
This instrument remained inactive during the reporting period.
SPICAV
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
VeRA
The USO is nominally powered but muted. Solar Corona observations were performed on 2006-281, 2006-283, 2006-285 and 2006-287.
VIRTIS
Following safe mode #5, VIRTIS operations were suspended.
VMC
The instrument is regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
Mission Planning
Short Term Planning
Operations of STP23 have been completed successfully. The planning of the conjunction period was successfully completed.
Future Milestones
Science operations will be suspended and all payloads will be switched off by 2006-288. The platform will be configured for conjunction by 2006-289.
An TCM will be performed on 2006-289 to correct the orbit changes caused by safe mode #5.