[meteorite-list] Search for CONTOUR Continues

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:16 2004
Message-ID: <200208161824.LAA08503_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.contour2002.org/news.php?id=19

Search for CONTOUR Continues
August 16, 2002
1PM EDT

Mission operators continue to listen for a signal from CONTOUR.

Using its 34-meter antennas, NASA's Deep Space Network stations are
scanning the spacecraft's expected path beyond Earth's orbit, attempting
to pick up radio signals from CONTOUR's transmitters. The CONTOUR team
is also awaiting feedback from several NASA-sponsored and other optical
and radar sites that have been searching the skies for signs of the
spacecraft.

CONTOUR's STAR 30 solid-propellant rocket motor was programmed to ignite
at 4:49 a.m. EDT on Aug 15, boosting the spacecraft out of an Earth
parking orbit and onto a trajectory to encounter two comets over the
next four years. The spacecraft was too low for DSN antennas to track
it during the burn - about 140 miles (225 kilometers) above the Indian
Ocean - and the CONTOUR mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory expected to regain contact about
45 minutes later to confirm the burn. No signal was received, and the
team has been working through plans to find the craft along the predicted
trajectories for a successful burn.

CONTOUR's onboard computer was carrying a command that, starting at 6 a.m.
EDT today, would have turned the spacecraft and pointed another of its
four antennas toward Earth. So far, however, no signal has been received.

CONTOUR, a Discovery-class mission to explore the nucleus of comets, was
built and managed by the John Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory, Laurel, Md., for NASA. Additional information about CONTOUR
is available on the Internet at:

http://www.contour2002.org .
Received on Fri 16 Aug 2002 02:24:21 PM PDT