SMART-1 Status Report 7 October 2003

SMART-1’s journey to the Moon is now fully under way. After the
initial test firing of the ion engine in Earth orbit, there was a
series of further tests to measure the engine’s behaviour. These
have now been completed.

At this time, the engine is being fired as planned for about 90% of
each orbit to gradually raising it away from the Earth on its
spiralling trip out to the Moon. The engine can’t be fired during
certain parts of the orbit when the spacecraft is in the shadow of
the Earth, because then the solar arrays will not generate electrical
power.

Since its launch, the size of the spacecraft orbit has already
increased by 400 kilometres and all systems on-board are functioning
well. “As a newborn in space, SMART-1 is progressively waking up to
its new environment,” said Bernard Foing, ESA’s SMART-1 Project
Scientist. “Like caring parents, ESA engineers and scientists are
monitoring its position, temperature and health signals around the
clock.”

SMART-1’s scientific instruments are also in good health, and are
being checked in what is called the ‘Pre-commissioning’ phase. Andrea
Marini, ESA’s SMART-1 Payload Engineer said: “After these years of
development and testing of the SMART-1 payload, what an emotional
time it has been to be able to communicate with the instruments, and
receive their signals as expected.”

As part of its mission objectives, SMART-1 is collecting interesting
data about the behaviour of the ion engine during its passages in and
out of the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts, which will continue for
the next two months. These radiation belts surround the Earth with a
stormy environment of energetic particles that could affect the
electronic systems and computers on board the spacecraft.

The engine is already working well in these passages, but when SMART-1
is safely out of the Van Allen belts its instruments will be able to
provide more sophisticated data. They will be calibrated to improve
their vision in the visible, infrared and X-ray wavelengths, and to
test further the technologies on board this clever space baby.