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Mars Pathfinder Update - October 9, 1997




MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS
9 October 1997, 3:00 p.m. PDT

Today the Mars Pathfinder team attempted to get the spacecraft
main transmitter on via ground commands from the Madrid Deep Space
Network station.  We attempted to do this three times, but was
not able to see the signal. 

Yesterday, the team spent the day reviewing the predicted thermal
state of the spacecraft and the possible operational implications of
low temperatures the spacecraft is currently operating at.
We did this in order to determine if these low temperatures 
could be part of the problem we are currently seeing.  The current
problem seems to be related to sporadic commanding. After analysis
of some thermal data, the team decided to modify some of the Deep
Space Network operating procedures to try to compensate for 
possible telecommunications hardware variations due to cold temperatures
on the Pathfinder spacecraft.  Normally, we don't have this problem
because we turn on the spacecraft transmitter for a few hours each day.
This warms up the spacecraft significently.  However, since we have
not been able to do this for the past eleven days, the spacecraft's
temperatures are lower than normal.  

Today, after our command session, we discovered another telecommunication
hardware operating characteristic that is significently different
at lower temperatures.  We will modify the Deep Space Network'
configuration before our command session tomorrow to try to adjust
for this.

Tomorrow, we will once again try to turn on the spacecraft's main
transmitter.  If we are successful, we will set the spacecraft's clock
and uplink a sequence that will attempt to send us data the next
day over the high-gain antenna.  The team is currently still hopeful
that this latest configuration change will help us the current
commanding problem.

For further information on the Mars Pathfinder Mission,
please call our Mission Status Report line at
1-800-391-6654.