Venus Express Status Report: Start of Second Payload Pointing Campaign
24 Jan 2006 09:00 Report for Period 13 January – 19 January 2006
During the reporting period the spacecraft control has been switched back to the Cebreros antenna. The period has been characterised by the second payload pointing campaign which will finish in the next reporting period.
Some tests with New Norcia and Cebreros have been conducted in order to better estimate the RF link performance.
The table below shows a chronology of the main activities in the reporting period:
| MET (Day) | Date | DOY | Main Activity |
| 66 | 13/01/06 | 013 | TM bit rate test with CEB |
| 67 | 14/01/06 | 014 | Skipped |
| 68 | 15/01/06 | 015 | Uplink of pointing scenarios, recharge of batteries, TM bit rate test with CEB |
| 69 | 16/01/06 | 016 | Science Data Downlink |
| 70 | 17/01/06 | 017 | Science Data Downlink |
| 71 | 18/01/06 | 018 | Science Data Downlink |
| 72 | 19/01/06 | 019 | Science Data Downlink |
At the end of the last Cebreros pass in the reporting period (DOY 019, 15:00) Venus Express was 21.9 million km from the Earth, 125.6 million km from the Sun, and 19.2 million km from Venus. The one-way signal travel time was 73 seconds.
Payload Activities
ASPERA The instrument is off.
MAG The instrument has been switched ON on DoY 016 and will be kept ON till the end of the pointing scenario on DoY 021.
PFS The instrument is off.
SPICAV The instrument has been activated on DoY 016, 017, 018 as part of the payload pointing scenario. Data analysis is on-going by the PI team.
VeRA The USO is kept powered but muted.
VIRTIS The instrument is off.
VMC The instrument is off.
Future Milestones
The payload pointing scenario will finish on DoY 021 when several payload will be operated in parallel.
The coming week will then mark the start of the in-flight thermal characterisation. During this test the cold faces of the spacecraft will be exposed to the Sun to have a term of reference to validate the thermal model used on ground for analysis. This test will last 2 weeks.
Operations will then be moved again to New Norcia, as planned, to allow the completion of the work to be done in Cebreros.
