[meteorite-list] Team Scales Back CONTOUR Monitoring

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:21 2004
Message-ID: <200208232053.NAA15281_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.contour2002.org/news.php?id=23

CONTOUR Mission Status Report
August 23, 2002

Team Scales Back CONTOUR Monitoring

Continual monitoring for signals from the CONTOUR spacecraft has
been scaled back. When communications from the spacecraft ceased
on Aug. 15, the mission entered "emergency" status, making it
eligible for round-the-clock coverage from NASA's Deep Space
Network (DSN) antenna stations.

Now, nine days after their last contact with the solar-powered
probe, the CONTOUR mission team says its time to move on. "Given
the disappointing circumstances, it was time to scale back our
monitoring," says Mission Director Dr. Robert Farquhar, of the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "We don't
want to take DSN time that could be used more effectively by
other missions."

Mission operators are now listening for a signal just once a week,
for approximately 8 hours each time. Yesterday, for the first
time since Aug. 15, they started sending commands and will
continue to do so during each of the contact attempts. The commands
are designed to configure the spacecraft for active communication
in case commands that are part of onboard autonomy did not do so
already.

The reduced monitoring schedule will continue until early to
mid-December. Then, for 2-3 days, the Earth will be near the center
of the pancake (multidirectional) antenna's beam width. This will
be the best alignment of spacecraft and Earth since the anomaly and
the best chance the team will have for making contact.

For a look at CONTOUR's antenna configuration, visit:

http://www.contour2002.org/overview2.html .
Received on Fri 23 Aug 2002 04:53:58 PM PDT