2004 Genesis Mission Status Updates
November 11, 2004
TCM-14 was the last maneuver planned for nominal mission.
December 16 is the last DSN communication with the spacecraft.
August 29, 2004
TCM-10 was done safely and precisely as planned early
this Sunday morning. All planned events occurrred per
design. We are now headed to UTTR. Flight Team at JPL
and LMSS did a great job!
August 11, 2004
TCM 9 occurred on Monday, August 9 at 3:15 am (PDT).
The purpose of this maneuver was to keep the spacecraft
on course and set up for a final maneuver which is targeted
to Earth entry. TCM 9 was the first opportunity to use
the highly accurate Spin Control technique by which
the size of the maneuver was directly observable via
the telemetered spin rate of the spacecraft. Early results
indicate that the maneuver was successfully completed
with less than 1% execution error.
April 21, 2004
Days since Launch of August 8, 2001: 986 days
Days to Earth Return: 140 days
Upcoming events:
Earth Flyby: May 1, about 10:00 UTC, the Genesis spacecraft
will be at a distance from earth of 392,300 km and traveling
about 1.26 km/s.
February 2, 2004
The Genesis spacecraft continues its mission collecting
solar wind material expelled from the Sun. Telemetry
from the Genesis spacecraft indicates that all spacecraft
subsystems are reporting nominal operation.
There are three collector arrays aboard Genesis that
are exposed to, or hidden from, the solar wind. One
collector array for each of the three solar wind regimes.
Which collector array is exposed is determined by the
data received by sensitive ion and electron monitors
located on the spacecrafts equipment deck. These
monitors scrutinize the solar wind passing by the spacecraft
and relay this information to the onboard computer,
which in turn commands the collector arrays to deploy
and retract as needed. Recent solar activity has called
for the low solar speed array to be deployed
92% of the time. Also, the H-Array, which handles high-speed
solar wind was unshaded 8% of the time.
The Genesis team is reconfiguring the spacecrafts
rejection grid after a safing event which occurred on
Jan. 29. The team will power back on the spacecrafts
concentrator with a new, lower maximum voltage limit
during a scheduled tracking pass on Feb. 3.
Telemetry from the Genesis spacecraft indicates that
it is spinning at a rate of 1.6 rotations per minute.
The spacecrafts space age gas gauge
indicates propellant usage totals are about 20.39 kilograms
(45 pounds).
Genesis Vital Statistics:
Days since Launch of August 8, 2001: 895 days
Days to planned completion of primary science collection:
66 days
Days to Earth Return: 223 days
Months/Days of Accumulated Science Collection: 24.87
months / 757 days
Upcoming events:
Release Phase Systems Design review scheduled for February
4/5
Kickoff of final SKM (SKM-5C) on February 25th
Return Phase Critical Events Readiness Review February
26
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