Mars Express Status Report - August 2003
25 August 2003 12:59Now in interplanetary cruise more than 20 million kilometers from Earth, the Mars Express spacecraft platform subsystems (thermal, power, attitude and orbit control, on-board data handling) continue to behave in a nominal manner.
Near-Earth spacecraft commissioning has been successfully completed, and spacecraft activities are now focusing on the preparations for lander ejection and Mars Orbit Insertion. Analysis of the power situation at Mars and the impact on both the recently selected orbit and the payload operations is being assessed. Near-Earth payload commissioning, including the Beagle-2 lander checkout, was successfully completed in July. The Interplanetary Cruise payload checkout is under preparation by the scientific and operations teams.