mars observer update forwarded from the mars observer project mars observer status report april am pdt dss madrid meter antenna did not acquire the expected mars observer spacecraft signal at the scheduled beginning of track yesterday morning at approximately am indications were that the spacecraft had entered a fault protection mode sometime between that time and receipt of normal telemetry at the end of the previous station pass dss goldstone meter antenna at approximately pm the evening before entry into contingency mode was verified when signal was reacquired and telemetry indicated that the spacecraft was sun coning after subsystem engineers reported all systems performing nominally fault protection telemetry modes were reconfigured and memory readouts of command system audit queue and aacs attitude and articulation control subsystem starex performed these readouts verified that contingency mode entry occurred shortly after am yesterday preliminary indications are that a sun ephemeris check failure triggered fault protection however the flight team will be determining the precise cause over the next few days as of last evening the spacecraft had been commanded back to inertial reference and was stable in that mode the flight team is planning to command the spacecraft back to array normal spin state today magnetometer calibration activities had completed prior to contingency mode entry mag calibration data has been recorded on digital tape recorders and playback of dtrs and scheduled to be completed yesterday was postponed when contingency mode entry halted flight sequence c execution the flight team is developing a strategy to restart c to complete data playback present planning is to perform playbacks between as soon as wednesday or as late as friday of next week dependent on contingency mode recovery activity dtr playback will be performed via the high gain antenna at bits per second upon verification of successful dtr playbacks downlink will be maintained at the k s e rate ron baalke baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov jet propulsion lab m s telos the aweto from new zealand pasadena ca is part caterpillar and part vegetable
