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Efforts To Recover SOHO Spacecraft Continue

Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC                        June 30, 1998
(Phone:  202/358-1727)

Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone:  301/286-5017)

Franco Bonacina
European Space Agency Headquarters, Paris, France
(Phone:  33-1-5369-7713)

RELEASE:  98-118

EFFORTS TO RECOVER SOHO SPACECRAFT CONTINUE 
AS INQUIRY BOARD CO-CHAIRS NAMED

       Engineers are continuing efforts to reestablish contact 
with the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Solar and Heliospheric 
Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft using NASA's Deep Space Network 
(DSN).  Contact with SOHO was lost on June 24 during maintenance 
operations.

       A team of experts from ESA and Matra Marconi Space, prime 
contractor for the SOHO spacecraft, gathered at NASA's Goddard 
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, to assist the NASA Flight 
Operations Team in assessing the situation and analyzing the 
spacecraft status should contact be reestablished.

       Engineers are concentrating on gaining a full understanding 
of the events which led to the loss of signal, information which 
might help them devise procedures which may recover contact with 
SOHO.  Commands are being sent to SOHO about once per minute 
through the DSNŐs 34-meter antennas instructing the spacecraft to 
activate its transmitters.  

       Based on the last telemetry data received from SOHO, 
engineers said it appears most likely that the spacecraft is 
slowly spinning in such a way that its solar arrays, which 
generate power, either do not face the Sun at all or do not 
receive adequate sunlight to generate power.  However, based on 
the last data received, it appears that SOHO's solar panels may be 
exposed to an increasing amount of sunlight each day as it orbits 
the Sun.  If this assumption is correct, within a few weeks enough 
sunlight might be hitting the solar panels to generate power to 
charge its batteries.  

       The incident will be the subject of a joint ESA/NASA 
inquiry board co-chaired by Prof. Massimo Trella, ESA Inspector 
General, and Dr. Michael Greenfield, Deputy Associate 
Administrator for the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, NASA 
Headquarters, Washington, DC.  The other members of the board will 
be selected from ESA and NASA as well as from the scientific 
community.  The board is expected to convene later this week at 
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

       More information, images and status reports from SOHO can 
be found on the Internet at:

            http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

                          - end -

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