Status 22 February 2000
The orbit adjustment burns for Terra have been proceeding well. On February
10, when the ascent sequence began, the spacecraft's minimum altitude above
the Earth was 660 kilometers. As of February 20, this had been raised to
690 kilometers. Based on the actual performance of the spacecraft's
thrusters, the timing and duration of the remaining two burns have been
modified. Today's successful burn at 10:00 AM PST was of 280-seconds duration,
somewhat shorter and earlier than originally planned. The final ascent burn
has been moved earlier by one day, to 1:10 PM PST Wednesday, February 23,
and is scheduled to last for 110 seconds.
There is some chance that a short burn will be necessary to "trim" the
orbit. Whether this burn is required will be decided by Wednesday evening,
and if needed, will take place Thursday. In that case MISR will proceed as
scheduled to open its cover on Friday, February 25. However, in light
of the possibility that the trim burn may not be needed, we are
pursuing the option of opening the cover on Thursday.
You can see earlier status reports by checking the "News" link of the MISR web site at http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov.
David Diner
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