Thank you for visiting the Deep Space 1 mission status information site, now beginning its fifth month on the list of most frequently visited sites in the solar system for information on this technology validation mission. This message was logged in at 8:45 pm Pacific Time on Thursday, February 25.

Deep Space 1 has been very busy with many new activities, so get comfortable before reading any further!

DS1 has been running now with its new software for over two weeks. Three quarters of a million lines of computer code were transmitted to the spacecraft to upgrade the main computer's software, and tests that have been conducted since then show it to be working extremely well.

Taking advantage of the new capability, DS1 achieved another impressive first this week. The autonomous navigation system, familiar to many of you as AutoNav, determined where the spacecraft is in the solar system. This is the first time a spacecraft has accomplished such a feat. All other spacecraft are told where they are by engineers analyzing data from the spacecraft, including its radio signal. AutoNav instead takes pictures of asteroids and stars, and analyzes them itself to determine its location using a method described in the website and recorded status reports. Since December, AutoNav has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to control the spacecraft to collect such images. But because of unexpected stray light reaching the camera, it could not fully analyze the resulting images. The new software however includes routines that allow AutoNav to do the needed analyses. The pictures taken prior to the loading of the new software were run through the same programs here on Earth and the results were transmitted to the spacecraft. Images taken last week, with the new software on board, were analyzed by AutoNav. Combining all of these, on Monday AutoNav determined its location to within 2000 kilometers or 1200 miles. Being off by just a few thousand kilometers is remarkable, considering the vastness of the solar system, as at the time the spacecraft was over 180 million kilometers or 110 million miles from the Sun and almost 41 million km or more than 25 million miles from Earth.

Today Deep Space 1 tested 3 of its advanced technologies for the first time. These technologies could not be activated until the new software was operating on the spacecraft. All 3 of them are designed to test devices important for NASA's objective of making spacecraft that are smaller and lighter. The first one tested consists of electronics that are smaller and consume much less power than conventional microelectronics. Because spacecraft have to generate their own electrical power, this is important for future smaller spacecraft. These electronics are also expected to be more resistant to radiation, which all spacecraft are exposed to. Developed by the MIT/Lincoln Laboratories, these electronic devices were powered on and tested for the first time today. Another new technology on board consists of a very small, lightweight set of on/off switches, developed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. These switches can actually report to the spacecraft's computer on how much current and voltage they are switching. Finally, DS1 tested a device known as a multifunctional structure. This places electronics right in a structural panel. The combination of these 2 important functions plus the ability to control the temperature all in one device offers the possibility of simplifying future spacecraft. Provided to NASA by the Air Force and built by Lockheed Martin, the multifunctional structure was the third of the 3 technologies turned on and operated today. The data on all 3 of these new systems will be analyzed during the coming weeks. Each of the devices will be tested repeatedly during the remainder of the mission to assess how applicable they are to spacecraft of the future. Now 11 of DS1's 12 technologies have been partially or completely tested, and many more experiments continue to be conducted.

Another of DS1's new technologies is a combination of 2 black and white cameras and 2 imaging spectrometers. An imaging spectrometer allows the construction of a picture in which each small element of the picture, known as a pixel, contains information on the spectrum of light; that is, the light is broken into its individual colors, as when you look through a prism. The imaging spectrometers in DS1 work in the ultraviolet and infrared, and the resulting data will allow scientists to determine, among other things, the chemical composition of objects being viewed. Traditional spacecraft would have 3 separate devices to accomplish all the functions of this one. But for NASA to launch smaller, more cost effective missions, it will be important to integrate these functions into small packages. Thus, DS1 is testing a miniature integrated camera spectrometer, which, following the tradition of innovative naming, is known by its initials as MICAS. MICAS has been used to provide the pictures for AutoNav. The innovative design is a result of a collaboration among the United States Geological Survey, SSG, Inc., the University of Arizona, Boston University, the Rockwell Science Center, and JPL.

The ultraviolet imaging spectrometer in MICAS should be able to detect the tenuous hydrogen gas distributed in our solar system, but so far it has not been able to do so. Now only a portion of the detector sends data to Earth, so the reason may be as simple as the light is reaching a different part of the detector, so new instructions were sent to MICAS on Tuesday to return data on the entire detector. The computer attempted to write these data into a space that was just slightly too small, and that of course is not allowed. So software designed to protect the spacecraft in case of unusual events detected this error, prompting it to stop the activity and place the craft in a predefined safe configuration. On Wednesday morning, the operations team returned the spacecraft to normal operations.

Last week a test of one of DS1's autonomy technologies, the beacon monitor experiment, was conducted. When beacon monitor is used, it summarizes the overall health of the spacecraft. Then it will select one of 4 radio tones to send to Earth to indicate how urgently it needs contact with the large antennas of the Deep Space Network. These tones are easily detected with low cost receivers and small antennas, so monitoring a spacecraft that uses this technology will free up the precious resources of the Deep Space Network. Each tone is like a single note on a musical instrument. One tone might mean that the spacecraft is fine, and it does not need contact with human operators. Another might mean that contact is needed sometime with a month, while a third could mean that contact should be established within a week. The last is a virtual red alert, indicating that the spacecraft and, therefore, the mission, are in jeopardy. In this recent test, the on-board system monitored the spacecraft's health for a short time. The software appeared to work well, and it will be turned on again soon for additional test opportunities.

Deep Space 1 is about 113 times as far away as the moon today. At this distance of over 43 million kilometers, or nearly 27 million miles, radio signals traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take nearly 5 minutes to make the round trip.