NEAR Shoemaker Weekly Report 1 Dec 2000

MISSION OPERATIONS:

NEAR Shoemaker continues to operate in the 200 km circular orbit initiated
November 3 at 03:00 UTC when Orbit Correction Maneuver 18 (OCM 18)
successfully executed. According to the mission plan, the spacecraft will
remain in this orbit for another four weeks, after which Orbit Correction
Maneuvers 19 and 20 (OCM 19 & OCM 20) will be utilized to lower the orbit to
35 km. The 35 km circular orbit will be dedicated to X-Ray / Gamma-Ray
Spectrometer (XGRS) prime science.

Since the next planned OCM is not scheduled until December 7, periodic
Momentum Correction Maneuvers (MCM) are required to manage spacecraft system
momentum. Two MCM’s will be required during this 200 km orbit phase. The
second maneuver of this pair, MCM 14, was successfully executed this past
Wednesday, November 29, at 17:28 UTC. The achieved momentum was well within
operational tolerances, and the imparted delta V was minor.

Mission Operations attention has shifted to the January Close Flyby and End
of Mission activities. The extraordinary nature of this final sequence
should present a most interesting challenge for operations.

The spacecraft subsystem configuration has not changed during this reporting
period.

As a result of recent solar flare activity, the XGRS BGO and GAS detectors
were temporarily disabled. The BGO detector has been re-enabled and the GAS
detector is scheduled to be turned back on during the next high gain track,
later today.

Except for the NIS, science activities conducted this week included Eros
observations by the full instrument suite: MSI, MAG, XGRS and NLR. Please
consult science timelines for more details.

Upcoming Spacecraft Activities:

In addition to regular Eros Science and Optical Navigation, the following
are operationally significant activities planned for the NEAR Shoemaker
mission operation:

Dec 7 Eros Orbit Correction Maneuver 19 (200 km x 35 km transfer
orbit)

Dec 13 Eros Orbit Correction Maneuver 20 (35 km orbit
circularization)