No. 112 - Routine Operations
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
| MET (Day) | Date | DOY | Main Activity |
| 782 | 30/12/07 | 364 | Routine Operations |
| 783 | 31/12/07 | 365 | Routine Operations Ranging measurement not successful |
| 784 | 01/01/08 | 001 | Routine Operations |
| 785 | 02/01/08 | 002 | Routine Operations Ranging measurement not successful |
| 786 | 03/01/08 | 003 | Routine Operations |
| 787 | 04/01/08 | 004 | Routine Operations |
| 788 | 05/01/08 | 005 | Routine operations |
At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 005, 12:00z) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 176.5 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 588 seconds.
Payload Activities
ASPERA
The instrument was regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
MAG
The instrument was regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
PFS
The instrument was not operated during the reporting period.
SPICAV
The instrument was regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
VeRA
No RSI activities took place this week.
VIRTIS
The instrument was regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
VMC
The instrument was regularly operated as part of the routine plan.
Ground Facilities
New Norcia support of radio science
NNO was used in two occasions for Radio Science dual ranging. The activity failed on both occasions on 31 December 2007 & 2 January 2008. The reason is understood to be due to the signal drop observed in the S-band link.
The current ranging standard does not permit different integration times for different bands. The problem is the relatively high signal-to-noise ratio in X-band with respect to S-band making it challenging to optimise integration time. This needs to be short enough to avoid saturation in X-band and long enough to allow tone lock in S-band. Test passes to fine-tune these settings have been proposed.
Future Milestones
- NNO and Cebreros scheduling for 2008