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Mars Global Surveyor Update - September 23, 1997
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- Subject: Mars Global Surveyor Update - September 23, 1997
- From: Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
- Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 14:27:15 GMT
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Mars Global Surveyor
Flight Status Report
Tuesday, 23 September 1997
After 12 days of orbital operations around the red planet, the Mars
Global Surveyor spacecraft continues to perform its mission flawlessly.
Late last night at 11:29 PDT, the spacecraft reached the low point of its
seventh orbit and completed its fourth aerobraking pass through the upper
Martian atmosphere. This pass occurred at an altitude of 75.1 miles
(120.9 km).
Air resistance from the atmosphere slowed Surveyor and caused the
altitude of the orbit's high point to drop from 33,302 miles (53,595 km)
down to 33,143 miles (53,340 km). This amount is comparable to the drop
that occurred from the previous pass which occurred on Sunday. The reason
for this similarity is that the altitude of the atmospheric pass and the
thickness of the atmosphere remained relatively constant between Sunday's
aerobraking pass and yesterday's pass.
At 9:31 PDT tonight, the flight team will fire Surveyor's tiny
rocket thrusters to lower the low point of the orbit deeper into the
Martian atmosphere. As a result, the next aerobraking pass will occur on
Wednesday night at an altitude of 72.1 miles (116 km). Eventually, the
low point of the orbit will be dropped to an altitude where the
atmospheric thickness will cause an average slow down of 11 m.p.h. (5
meters per second) per orbit. Currently, the amount of slow down per
orbit is about 2.2 m.p.h. (1 meter per second).
After a mission elapsed time of 320 days from launch, Surveyor is
163.54 million miles (263.19 million kilometers) from the Earth and in an
orbit around Mars with a period of 44.08 hours. The spacecraft is
currently executing the P7 command sequence, and all systems continue to
be in excellent condition.
---------------------------------------
Status report prepared by:
Office of the Flight Operations Manager
Mars Surveyor Operations Project
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109
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