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Mission Status & Events

Commissioning Update From Aquarius PI Gary Lagerloef: Second Deployment Stage Completed
[17-Aug-11] Earlier today, we completed the second deployment stage of the Aquarius antenna at about 1501 UT, with many cheers from those of us sitting here overlooking the control room. The deployment again took place over the Arctic with coverage from Svalbard and Alaska tracking stations.

Today's diagram shows the satellite's roll, pitch and yaw angles. The roll (green symbols) changed almost 8 degrees during the deployment, as predicted. The boom and reflector combination are now latched into the proper alignment, and the satellite is back in the normal science pointing mode. This critical event is now successfully behind us, and we are one giant step closer to begin collecting science data.

Tomorrow and Friday we will turn on the thermal control system and upload software patches. The radiometers will be turned on Saturday, 20 August (a correction from yesterday's memo).