News

18.07.2018 14:50 Age: 6 yrs

[JASON-2] : SATELLITE IN SAFE HOLD MODE SINCE WEDNESDAY JULY 18th 09:00 UTC

Category: Operational news

Jason-2 spacecraft entered into safe mode Wednesday, July 18th at 09:00 UTC, immediately interrupting its measurements.

The Jason-2 spacecraft entered safe mode today (Wednesday, July 18th) at 09:00UTC, immediately interrupting its measurements.   The satellite is currently in a safe and stable Sun-pointing configuration. The analysis of the telemetry shows that the safe hold mode is consecutive to a gyro #1 disjunction. Those anomalies are now known and, as decided during last JSG, the reconfiguration of the satellite on gyro#2 started immediately. Recovery operations will keep on during the following days, and Jason-2 mission is expected to restart nominally next week, hopefully on Wednesday, July 25th. The exact time of instruments restart will be communicated later.  

As indicated earlier this week, Jason-2 maneuvers have been performed in order to place Jason-2 on an “interleaved LRO” orbit, so that more precise results are available for geodetic purpose. Fortunately, the reconfiguration to safe hold mode has been triggered after the last maneuver, which means Jason-2 should be ready to provide measurements on cycle 600 (new cycle numbering for the i-LRO measurements) right after restart.