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Mars Pathfinder Mission Status

7 February 1997


Successfully completed Trajectory Correction Maneuver #2 on February 3. The purpose of this maneuver was to clean up TCM-1 execution errors and had a magnitude of about 1.6 m/s. The maneuver consisted of two parts, an axial component of 1.5 m/s and a lateral component of 0.1 m/s. All spacecraft subsystems performed as expected, and the resulting maneuver execution error was less than 2%. The spacecraft was turned back to Earth after the maneuver, and will remain in this attitude until late March.

The spacecraft computer reset during an off-track period on Wednesday, February 5. Analysis of post reset telemetry indicates that it was caused by a divide-by-zero fault in the attitude control flight software (ACS). The spacecraft responded as expected to this anomaly, and correctly enforced the early cruise boot configuration. This configuration idles ACS and reduces the uplink and downlink data rates from nominal cruise values. Several commands were sent on February 6 to increase the data rates and return diagnostic data, but attitude control is still idle. The spacecraft is in a safe attitude, however, so there is no compelling reason to restart ACS.

An all-hands science team meeting was held on February 5-7. All existing investigators plus the newly selected ASI/MET FIST scientists and participating scientists were invited. The purpose of this meeting was to organize the science teams into a set of science operations groups and to review the current baseline plans for surface operations. A number of useful suggestions were made for modifying the nominal Sol 1-2 plans.


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