August 23, 2002 Team Scales Back CONTOUR Monitoring Continual monitoring for signals from the CONTOUR spacecraft has been scaled back. When communications from the spacecraft ceased on Aug. 15, the mission entered "emergency" status, making it eligible for round-the-clock coverage from NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna stations. Now, nine days after their last contact with the solar-powered probe, the CONTOUR mission team says it's time to move on. "Given the disappointing circumstances, it was time to scale back our monitoring," says Mission Director Dr. Robert Farquhar, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "We don't want to take DSN time that could be used more effectively by other missions." Mission operators are now listening for a signal just once a week, for approximately 8 hours each time. Yesterday, for the first time since Aug. 15, they started sending commands and will continue to do so during each of the contact attempts. The commands are designed to configure the spacecraft for active communication in case commands that are part of onboard autonomy did not do so already. The reduced monitoring schedule will continue until early to mid-December. Then, for 2-3 days, the Earth will be near the center of the pancake (multidirectional) antenna's beam width. This will be the best alignment of spacecraft and Earth since the anomaly and the best chance the team will have for making contact. For a look at CONTOUR's antenna configuration, visit: http://www.contour2002.org/overview2.html. August 21, 2002 Six Days and Still No Signal After six days, the Mission Operations team has yet to hear a signal from the CONTOUR spacecraft. Two objects, believed to be spacecraft segments, were detected Aug. 16, the day after the solid rocket motor burn, and a third more distant object has since been found. The objects are now more than 2 million kilometers from Earth, traveling at a steady 6.1 kilometers per second (3.8 miles per second or 13,600 miles per hour). They remain on a trajectory predicted by early observations; although they have now traveled so far from the Sun and Earth that more observations are unlikely. If the spacecraft is still capable of operating, by Thursday, Aug. 22, it will have completed the first cycle of having each of its two transmitters attempt to send a signal through each of three antennas. Near continuous monitoring for CONTOUR continues through Sunday. After that, efforts will be scaled back to once a week - a schedule that will be maintained until early December when the spacecraft will come into a more favorable angle for receiving a signal from Earth. Deep Space Network coverage will extend through this weekend. As far as contacting the spacecraft this week, Dr. Robert Farquhar, CONTOUR mission director from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory says, "We know there's not much room for optimism through this week. Even the second week of December, when we have our best shot, chances are small. But it's still worth monitoring."