ESA Venus Express Status Report No. 93
29 Aug 2007 14:38 Report for Period 19 August to 25 August 2007
Routine observations took place during this reporting period, occurring as planned except for VIRTIS operations. Three occurrences of a solar array pointing anomaly were seen over DOY 235/236, the last two leading to one of the SA motors being declared failed.
This is currently under investigation but is believed to be related to a known MEX anomaly. Until the anomaly testing is complete the spacecraft has been left earth pointing with the payload off. The solar panel pointing has been successfully corrected.
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
| MET (Day) | Date | DOY | Main Activity |
| 649 | 19/08/07 | 231 | Routine Operations. Virtis Off |
| 650 | 20/08/07 | 232 | Routine Operations. Virtis Off |
| 651 | 21/08/07 | 233 | Routine Operations. Virtis Off |
| 652 | 22/08/07 | 234 | Routine Operations. Virtis Off |
| 653 | 23/08/07 | 235 | Routine Operations. VIRTIS Off. S-Band test. Return of AIU and SADE ORB’s to nominal configuration following functional monitoring trigger between passes. |
| 654 | 24/08/07 | 236 | Manual switch down of payload following two further out of pass SADE triggerings leading to a SADE Motor failed status. AIU and SADE ORBs reset to nominal and solar array mispointing corrected. Spacecraft left earth pointing and with payload off |
| 655 | 25/08/07 | 237 | Payload off and Earth Pointing. |
At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 237, 15:00z) Venus Express was orbiting Venus at 44.2 million km from the Earth. The one-way signal travel time was 147 seconds.
Payload Activities
ASPERA
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan. Switched down on DOY 236.
MAG
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan. Switched down on DOY 236.
PFS
No PFS operations were carried out this week.
SPICAV
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan. Switched down on DOY 236.
VeRA
No RSI activities took place this week
VIRTIS
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan. Switched down on DOY 236.
VMC
The instrument was operated as part of the routine plan. Switched down on DOY 236.
Future Milestones
- Test solar array rotation and return to planned mission operations
- Resume VIRTIS operations and investigate the problem
- Resume 2000bps TC bitrate on the return of commanding redundancy at this rate with the recommissioning of the CEB X-HPA
- Release of documentation updates
