PDS_VERSION_ID = PDS3 RECORD_TYPE = STREAM OBJECT = TEXT PUBLICATION_DATE = 2007-07-31 NOTE = " E-mail and other messages concerning MGS Radio Science on or about 2006/332." END_OBJECT = TEXT END From Thomas.W.Thompson@jpl.nasa.gov Tue Nov 28 09:58:36 2006 Return-Path: Received: from nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov (nmta.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.215]) by magellan.stanford.edu (8.11.7p2+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id kASHwaF28416 for ; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:58:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from xmta1.jpl.nasa.gov (xmta1.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.144]) by nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kASHw7E0001940; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:58:07 -0800 Received: from [137.78.253.89] (mac-thompson.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.253.89]) by xmta1.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kASHw46t011146; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:58:05 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:58:03 -0800 To: Recipient List Suppressed:; From: Thomas W Thompson Subject: Mars Express Joins Hunt For Missing Mars Probe Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" X-Source-IP: mac-thompson.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.253.89] X-Source-Sender: Thomas.W.Thompson@jpl.nasa.gov X-AUTH: Authorized Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by magellan.stanford.edu id kASHwaF28416 Content-Length: 4146 Status: RO http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn10669-europe-joins-hunt-for-missing-mars-probe.html Europe joins hunt for missing Mars probe David Shiga New Scientist 28 November 2006 NASA has called on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft to look for the missing Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) after the Opportunity rover failed to locate it by listening for its radio beacon. The 10-year-old MGS was last heard from on 5 November. It reported problems re-pointing one of its solar power arrays shortly before going silent (see NASA struggles to contact lost Mars probe ). NASA called on its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to try to take pictures of MGS on 17 and 20 November. But the images did not reveal the spacecraft, perhaps because MGS had shifted in its orbit since last contact (see Mars probe probably lost forever ). After MRO failed to spot the spacecraft, NASA turned to its Opportunity rover to continue the search. Opportunity listened for MGS's radio beacon on 21 and 22 November, but heard nothing. Roving search All these failed attempts do not necessarily mean MGS is dead, says the spacecraft's manager Thomas Thorpe of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US. "The antenna that transmits the signal is on one side of MGS, and that may or may not have been pointed at Mars when we passed over" the rover, he told New Scientist. The radio beam from MGS's antennas is about 60d wide, giving only about a 1 in 6 chance of it reaching the rover, since MGS's orientation is unknown. Opportunity's roving twin, Spirit, will try to detect the beacon, too. But Spirit is just emerging from its winter hibernation and will not have enough power to spare for this task until a few weeks from now, Thorpe says. Pass in the night In the meantime, the European Space Agency (ESA) is joining the search: "We've asked the Mars Express people to take an image of MGS with their High Resolution Stereo Camera," Thorpe says, adding that the Mars Express HRSC team had agreed to make the attempt. They have not set a date for this attempt, but the earliest opportunity is on 7 December 2006, when the two spacecraft should come within 400 kilometres of each other. Even though random drift of the spacecraft has led to uncertainty in its position, the field of view of Mars Express's HRSC is wide enough to include the entire area that the spacecraft could be in, Thorpe says. MRO is just beginning its science observations and is too busy to continue hunting for MGS, he says. But if Mars Express can locate MGS, then a case could be made for a second imaging attempt with MRO, which has the only camera powerful enough to reveal the orientation of the spacecraft and the position of its solar panels, Thorpe says. This information would help engineers to diagnose and perhaps solve the problem that is preventing the spacecraft from communicating with Earth. Points of light The MRO images taken on 17 and 20 November did show two extra points of light that did not correspond to any of the stars expected in the field of view. There had been speculation that these points of light were two pieces of MGS - perhaps the main body of the spacecraft and a broken-off solar panel. Thorpe says that scenario is unlikely, however. "If those blips were real, they were in two very different orbits, so it's pretty unlikely that both could have come from the spacecraft," he says. It remains possible that one of the points of light is MGS, but they are too dim to draw any firm conclusions, he says. One or both could just be instrument noise, perhaps the result of cosmic rays hitting the camera, he says. While other probes search for MGS, NASA is beaming commands to it from Earth every day in the hope of reviving it. The agency has been trying various ways of commanding it to turn on its low gain antennas, and also ordering it to rotate in the hope of getting them pointed closer to Earth. But the spacecraft has remained stubbornly silent despite these efforts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From kahan@jpl.nasa.gov Tue Nov 28 17:11:46 2006 Return-Path: Received: from nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov (nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.215]) by magellan.stanford.edu (8.11.7p2+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id kAT1BkF01347 for ; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:11:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from xmta3.jpl.nasa.gov (xmta3.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.111]) by nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kAT1BfvE004400; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:11:41 -0800 Received: from mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov (mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.141]) by xmta3.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kAT1BdvJ029030; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:11:39 -0800 Received: from webmail.jpl.nasa.gov (localhost.jpl.nasa.gov [127.0.0.1]) by mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kAT1Bdgu021717; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:11:39 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: Daniel.S.Kahan-121461@jpl.nasa.gov Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:11:39 -0800 From: "Daniel S Kahan" Message-Id: <1164762699-13295.00011.00075-smmsdV2.1.4@localhost> X-SMMS-Source: 137.78.78.85 To: "Maria Schellpfeffer" Cc: "Martin, "Kyle W"" , "Martin, "Kyle W"" , "Howell, "Dale K"" , "Adams, "William R"" , "Bezjak, "Kelly.J@jpl.nasa.gov, "" , "Delk, "John"" , "Espitallier, "Dean S"" , "Gingerich, "David E"" , "Koch, "Lori A"" , "Love, "Charles R"" , "Mumaw, "Susan J"" , "Odiorne, "Stephen C"" , "Oliver, "Tom H"" , "Torkelson, "Randy M"" , "Travis, "Paul A"" , "Walthall, "Oliver K"" , , , , , , , "Robert Zimdar" , , , , "Zercher, "Ray E"" , "Starnes, "Kenny R"" , , , , , , , "Ancheta, "Shanti"" , , "Bendkowski, "Barbara A"" , "Freund, Sandra" Subject: Re: List of Questions Regarding RS Signals In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.2.20061128163522.05a7c1a8@mail.jpl.nasa.gov> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Source-IP: mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.141] X-Source-Sender: kahan@jpl.nasa.gov X-AUTH: Authorized Content-Length: 1119 Status: RO Maria, I can answer/comment on some of these now: >Can we get any post-track data from MEX that would differ from the >predictions, i.e. New Norcia info? Starting with the 321-322 pass, I started recording Mars Express on the RSR at Canberra (as shown in the latest plot). So at least I can tell if there was a signal or not. >What are the exact Drive On/Drive Off times from all our uplink sweeps? >What are the possible ways we could be in two-way coherent mode? >What is the power level for the signals seen by Radio Science? I sent some data to Bill. The power level is low...and the same as the MEX ranging tones. >Is Radio Science recording all stations in Mars view or just the ones >allocated to Mars projects or something else? Lately, all MGS passes and any Mars pass when at DSS-43 or DSS-14 (not many at 14 lately). >Are the residual and predicted frequencies being added/subtracted correctly >in the RS plots? > There could be a difference in sign convention for the residual plots, but the sky frequency in the plots was calculated by the RSR, and nothing else was done to it. -Danny -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From kahan@jpl.nasa.gov Tue Nov 28 11:41:11 2006 Return-Path: Received: from nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov (nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.215]) by magellan.stanford.edu (8.11.7p2+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id kASJfAF28757 for ; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from xmta3.jpl.nasa.gov (xmta3.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.111]) by nmta2.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kASJf3B4005247; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:03 -0800 Received: from mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov (mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.141]) by xmta3.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kASJf2AL029823; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:02 -0800 Received: from webmail.jpl.nasa.gov (localhost.jpl.nasa.gov [127.0.0.1]) by mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov (Switch-3.1.9/Switch-3.1.9) with ESMTP id kASJf2F1032015; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:02 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: Daniel.S.Kahan-121461@jpl.nasa.gov Content-Type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="smms-2.1.4-8326320"; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:02 -0800 From: "Daniel S Kahan" Message-Id: <1164742862-13303.00013.00136-smmsdV2.1.4@localhost> X-SMMS-Source: 137.78.78.85 To: "Adams, William R" Cc: "Maria Schellpfeffer" , , , "Dale Howell (Dale Howell)" , "Martin, "Kyle W"" , , , Kelly.J@jpl.nasa.gov, , "Travis, "Paul A"" , "Espitallier, "Dean S"" , "Short, "Owen G"" , "Dick Simpson 650-723-3525" Subject: More on day 321-322 In-Reply-To: <1164685162-6099.00011.00055-smmsdV2.1.4@localhost> X-Source-IP: mprox2.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.160.141] X-Source-Sender: kahan@jpl.nasa.gov X-AUTH: Authorized Content-Length: 334492 Status: RO --smms-2.1.4-8326320 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bill, I updated the powerpoint with more plots from the pass on 321-322. On slides 12 & 14 we see the behavior of the MEX ranging tones as compared to MGS Aux Osc predicts. Slide 13 shows an earlier incidence of this mystery signal and its disappearance coincident with a change in the MEX residual. On slide 15 the loss of signal is near an MGS ingress (as you have shown), while MEX continues. On slide 16 again the signal is lost when MEX is lost, but it is probably end of track. Slides 17 and 18 show the real-time display when the two signals, one a MEX ranging tone, appeared within the same 100-KHz bandwidth. Danny --smms-2.1.4-8326320 Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-powerpoint; name="MGS Radio Science Observations.ppt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64 0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPgADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEAAAA1AEAAAAA AAAAEAAA3QEAAAEAAAD+////AAAAANABAADRAQAA0gEAANMBAAD///////////////////// ...