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ESA's Mars Express first check-out nearly complete
European Space Agency 
2 July 2003

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft is progressing further every day on its
journey to the Red Planet. Everything is set for arrival at Mars on
the night of 25 December 2003, after a journey of about 400 million
kilometres. In the weeks since its launch, engineers have started to
thoroughly test the spacecraft and its equipment.
 
This testing phase is standard for all spacecraft on the way to their
destination. Known as commissioning, it began 3 weeks after the
launch. During this time, ground controllers sent signals to each of
the orbiter's seven instruments to switch them on and verify their
health status. 

As well as commissioning the instruments, the ground controllers also
tested each of the spacecraft's subsystems. There was a thrilling
moment when one of the on-board computer memory units, known as the
Solid State Mass Memory (SSMM), seemed to not respond properly during
the instruments check-out. Good progress has been made on this issue
in the last few days: a test involving all instruments was completed
successfully by recording and recovering the data through the SSMM.

Unfortunately, during the commissioning of the power subsystem,
ground engineers recorded an interconnection problem between the
solar arrays and the power conditioning unit on board the spacecraft.
This means approximately 70% of the power generated by the solar
arrays is available for the satellite and its payload to use. This
anomaly has no effect on the state of the spacecraft and has no
impact on the mission during the whole trip to Mars, including the
orbit insertion phase once at destination.

Despite this, the experts analysing the anomaly believe that even
with this power shortage, the nominal Mars observation mission will
be achievable. However, satellite payload operations may have to be
reviewed for certain short periods of the mission.

Ground engineers are now preparing for the last of the payload's
tests: the Beagle-2 lander will undergo its check-out on 4-5 July
2003. The experts are looking confidently to it. "In fact," says
Rudolf Schmidt, Mars Express Project Manager, "overall, the
spacecraft is in good shape. We are simply getting to know its
personality." 

For more information, please contact:

Rudi Schmidt, ESA Mars Express Project Manager
ESA-ESTEC
Tel: +31 (0)71 565 3603
E-mail: rudolf.schmidt{at}esa.int

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