Thank you for visiting the Deep Space 1 mission status information site, perhaps the most popular logged source of information in the solar system on this technology validation mission. This message was logged in at 7:00 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, October 27.

Deep Space 1 continues to perform well. The operations team at JPL has completed its transmission of commands to configure the spacecraft for early mission operations and to allow the return of data to aid in detailed assessments of its health and status. The control electronics for the ion propulsion system were turned on to allow the first routine evaluation of the status of the xenon control system which is now confirmed to be healthy. A glitch on Monday evening caused one of the two solar arrays to turn so that it was not pointed at the Sun. While the other solar array easily provided enough power to operate the spacecraft, the operations team was able to carefully assess the situation and today developed and tested a procedure to repoint the solar array. The commands were then transmitted to the spacecraft and were executed according to plan, returning the array to its correct orientation.

The next scheduled activity is a turn planned for no earlier than Friday to point the ion engine near the Sun to heat portions of it to remove any potential contaminants that might interfere with its operation.

Deep Space 1 is now more than twice as far away as the moon.