The Venus Express Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) activities again continued to run very smoothly. All foreseen activities were completed and it was also possible to bring forward some platform commissioning activities, which were planned for last weekend.
A pinnacle in the reporting period was the first command send to Venus Express in X-Band via the new ESA 35m Deep Space Ground Station at Cebreros (Avila, Spain). Furthermore, the Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM-1) was successfully performed, which now brings Venus Express on the exact trajectory required for Venus Orbit Insertion.
Pass 4 Activities
LEOP operations included successful switching from the Low Gain Antenna (LGA) to the High Gain Antenna (HGA2), a test with the second S-Band transponder (S-Tx2), change in radio frequency band from S-Band to X-Band, and increase of the telemetry downlink bit rate to 91.4 kbps.
At 17:10 UTC the uplink carrier was established at Cebreros and the first command was transmitted from Cebreros to the Venus Express spacecraft at 17:21 UTC in X-Band. This marked the successful achievement of a major milestone for the new ESA 35m ground station.
The first dump of the Solid State Mass Memory (SSMM) data was done at 19:47 UTC, the first On-Board Control Procedure (OBCP) executed at 19:52 UTC, and the first Reaction Wheel off-loading was performed from 18:25 to 00:19 UTC.
Bonus activities in pass 4 encompassed Thermal Control System (TCS) heater switching, and successful commissioning of the Data Management System (DMS). It is to be noted that both the power and the thermal behaviour of the spacecraft are very close to pre-launch flight predictions.
Pass 5 Activities
