Status Report

ESA Venus Express Status Report: No. 101

By SpaceRef Editor

November 21, 2007

Filed under ESA Venus Express Mission, Europe, Venus, Venus Express

ESA Venus Express Status Report: No. 101 — http://images.spaceref.com/news/venus.express.jpg

24 Oct 2007 11:39 Report for Period 14 October to 20 October 2007

The Main activity during this week has been the entrance in Quadrature on the 19 October 2007. The procedure was fully automated as part of the routine plan following the experience of the previous quadrature. The fake ephemeris was again applied in GSP before the AOS in Cebreros.

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
705	14/10/07	287	Routine operations
706	15/10/07	288	Routine operations
707	16/10/07	289	Routine Operations.
708	17/10/07	290	Routine Operations
709	18/10/07	291	Routine Operations
710	19/10/07	292	Routine Operations & switch to quadrature operations
711	20/10/07	293	Routine Operations.

At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 293, 18:00z) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 94.6 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 315 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. VMOC has completed the development of new procedures to operate the cooler motors of both the H and M units. All covers are closed and VIRTIS is in a safe state.

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