[meteorite-list] Venus Express Just Days Away From Re-entering Venus' Atmosphere

[Ron Baalke]

http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2015/01/15/update-on-vex-carrier-monitoring/

Update on VEX carrier monitoring 22:00 CET
European Space Agency
January 15, 2015

As we described last Friday, the operations team at ESOC are able to continue 
monitoring radio signals from Venus Express; they can 'see' the X-band 
carrier wave being transmitted from the spacecraft's high-gain antenna 
despite the fact that it is not pointed at Earth, although this, too, 
is steadily dropping off.

Today (Thursday, 15 Jan), VEX spacecraft operations engineer Rick Blake, 
at ESOC, sent in this update:

During the Cebreros tracking station pass for VEX yesterday, the carrier 
signal appears to have improved compared to the 'short' pass that we saw 
via Malargue station the day before. The pericentre passage prior to this 
pass was predicted to be at an altitude of 128.8 km, the subsequent pericentre 
passage is predicted to be at an altitude of 127.2 km.

Venus Express mission manager Patrick Martin says that the most recent 
(calculated, not observed) altitude of VEX is now below the lowest ever 
achieved during the aerobraking campaign, and that loss of signal will 
most likely occur in a matter of days rather than weeks.