ESA Venus Express Status Report No. 88 – Mission News

24 Jul 2007 12:00

Report for Period 15 July to 21 July 2007

Routine observations took place during this reporting period, occurring as planned. The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:

At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 202, 18:00z) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 57.70 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 192 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
On DOY 195 PFS continued operations to try to open the scanner during WOL. There was no indication from the instruments telemetry that the scanner has moved. This has to be confirmed by the PI after detailed assessment of HK and science data.

SPICAV
The instrument was regularly operated as part of the routine plan.

VeRA
No RSI during this period

VIRTIS
On DOY 196, VIRTIS failed to synchronize at switch on, and produced bad time quality data for one hour, until a new DMS synchro pulse was received by the unit. Only payload HK TM was partially affected, and the science data was all received as expected.

VMC
The instrument is operated as part of the routine plan.

Future Milestones

• Last two BSR supports with DSN in early August (all other BSR activities have been cancelled due to S-band attenuation problem).


• VIRTIS Movie #2 scheduled in the second week of August


• Low PLL bandwidth acquisition tests with LGA and S-band over NNO scheduled for mid-August.