Genesis Mission Status January 3, 2002

The spacecraft has been quietly collecting science over the holiday break. We had a solar proton storm on December 26 and a high-speed solar stream on December 31, both of which were weathered well (there’s a pun there somewhere).

There was a high-speed solar wind stream, over 700 kilometers per second (1.5 million miles per hour) on December 31. Because of this, the electrode mirror voltage correctly went the highest it’s been since checkout, 10 kilovolts. A few arcs were noted, but these were expected. Since the leading edge of the stream was relatively hot, the rejection grid voltage correctly went to zero volts and then up to 1500 volts during the event.

Daily precessions continued over the break. The spacecraft is still spinning at 1.6 revolutions per minute. The second station-keeping maneuver, 1B, is scheduled for January 16th. The sample return capsule’s battery is now at 32 degrees Celsius, increasing about 0.2 degrees Celsius per day, and following the curve as we expected.