ESA Venus Express Status Report: No. 102
29 Oct 2007 12:00 Report for the Period 21 October to 27 October 2007
Following last week’s entry in Quadrature phase, the activities during this week cover routine operations in Quadrature. These operations are severely constrained due to the special thermal restrictions that apply during Quadrature phase.
Preparations for the upcoming HGA swap were completed this week. All commands for the swap were loaded during the pass on 25 October, set for execution before AOS on 29 October.
VIRTIS operations remained disabled during this period. The rest of observations took place routinely during this reporting period.
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
| MET (Day) | Date | DOY | Main Activity |
| 712 | 21/10/07 | 294 | Routine operations |
| 713 | 22/10/07 | 295 | Routine operations. TM bit rate cahnged to 38 kpbs |
| 714 | 23/10/07 | 296 | Routine Operations. Station failure affected dumps. |
| 715 | 24/10/07 | 297 | Routine Operations |
| 716 | 25/10/07 | 298 | Routine Operations. Uplink of HGA Swap TCs. |
| 717 | 26/10/07 | 299 | Routine Operations & switch to quadrature operations |
| 718 | 27/10/07 | 300 | Pass skipped for cooldown before science ops |
At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 300, 13:00z) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 109.5 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 365 seconds.
Payload Activities
ASPERA
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan.
MAG
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan.
PFS
The instrument was not operated during the reporting period.
SPICAV
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan.
VeRA
No RSI activities took place this week.
VIRTIS
The instrument was not operated during the reporting period. All covers are closed and VIRTIS is in a safe state.
VMC
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan.
Future Milestones
- Swap to HGA1 – 29 October 2007
- Restart of VIRTIS operations – 4 November 2007
- Release of new version of the SOIA to be applied for the mission extension.
