PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Mars Pathfinder Mission Status
July 21, 1997
10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time
The Mars Pathfinder flight team successfully reestablished contact with the Pathfinder lander and rover early this morning, completing several communications sessions using both the low- gain and high-gain antennas.

"What a difference a day makes," said Brian Muirhead, Pathfinder project manager. "The project team has successfully regained full communication capability on both the low-gain and high-gain antennas. The team is extremely pleased with our current status."

Most of the communications problem experienced over the weekend was associated with ground operations, not with the spacecraft on Mars, Muirhead said. "We'll be working to eliminate the cause of these problems in the coming days, as we return to a more normal mode of operations."

The flight team successfully initiated its first low-gain communications session of the Martian day at 10:38 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on July 20, then began a second low-gain session at 1:36 a.m. July 21. Both sessions were returning data at the low data rate of 40 bits per second. At 3:22 a.m. PDT, the team conducted a third, brief low-gain session at a slightly higher data rate of 150 bits per second.

"All sessions worked perfectly, and we gained all of the basic engineering and telemetry data that had been stored onboard," Muirhead reported. "We verified that all spacecraft subsystems were healthy."

At 4:50 a.m. PDT, the team conducted a brief high-gain antenna session to make sure the high-gain antenna was pointed at Earth. A full high-gain antenna session at 8,200 bits per second was later performed beginning at 6:43 a.m. PDT. The team acquired all data on lander and rover health and completed acquisition of all of the spacecraft engineering data. They also sent a software update to correct sequences onboard the flight computer which have caused it to automatically reset itself.

Tonight's science activities will include downlinking measurements of a white-colored rock named Scooby Doo and continuing to acquire data from a full resolution color panoramic photograph of the landing site.

On this Martian day, Sol 17, Earth rose over the newly named Sagan Memorial Station at 8:07 p.m. PDT yesterday July 20. Sunrise was at 11:15 p.m. July 20 and Earth set occurred this morning at 9:45 a.m. July 21.

An audio update on Pathfinder's status can be heard by calling 1-800-391-6654.

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