Thank you for visiting the Deep Space 1 mission status information site, now in its 7th week on the list of the most authoritative sources of information in the plane of the Milky Way galaxy on this technology validation mission. This message was logged in at 11:30 am Pacific Time on Saturday, December 5.

Deep Space 1 continues in powered flight. The ion propulsion system on DS1 has been thrusting smoothly since Tuesday, November 24. This system can be throttled, with higher throttle levels drawing more electrical power and delivering more thrust. With DS1's design, the minimum throttle level is 0 and the maximum is 111, although it has never been planned that the highest throttle levels would be reached. The spacecraft does not have enough electrical power to drive the ion engine at the highest levels, but for this technology validation mission, these levels are unnecessary. The thruster has been at throttle level 83 since late Monday afternoon, with important performance data being returned all the while. These data are extremely valuable, and this is an important part of DS1's charter of evaluating high-risk technologies critical for NASA's future space science missions. DS1 has now operated its thruster for a much much longer uninterrupted time than any deep space probe. In addition, the thruster has operated for a longer time without interruption than had been planned for this mission. For most of the mission, it will be turned off for approximately 15 hours each week that thrusting is desired so that the spacecraft can conduct other activities.

On Friday afternoon, the ion propulsion system was throttled down briefly while the spacecraft turned. The system returned to throttle level 83, and the spacecraft is now thrusting in a direction that should help it along in its journey to an asteroid next year. While reaching the asteroid is not an essential part of the mission, and the objective of validating technologies can be accomplished without such an encounter, passing by an asteroid would contribute somewhat to validation of some of the technologies and would allow the bonus of a return of exciting scientific data.

So far, the gentle thrust from the ion propulsion system has increased DS1's speed by over 400 kilometers per hour, or more than 250 miles per hour. At the current throttle level, the speed continues to increase by over 45 kilometers per hour every day, or about 30 mph each day.

The ion propulsion system will be turned off for most of this next week, while other technology tests are conducted with this flying laboratory.

This ion propulsion system is one of 12 advanced technologies being validated on DS1. The system is a product of the NASA NSTAR program, a cooperative effort between JPL and the Lewis Research Center. The industrial participants in this exciting technology are Hughes Electron Dynamics Division; Moog Inc.; Spectrum Astro Inc.; and Physical Science Inc.

While the ion propulsion system is thrusting, important data are collected on DS1's advanced solar array which provides the electrical power to operate the ion propulsion system and the rest of the spacecraft. That array uses lenses to focus sunlight onto 3600 high efficiency solar cells to generate electricity. The solar array was provided to NASA by BMDO and was developed by AEC-Able Engineering, Entech, and NASA's Lewis Research Center. The solar cells on the array were manufactured by Tecstar.

Each NASA mission has a well documented set of objectives that must be satisfied. On December 2, DS1 met the criteria for minimum mission success. That was achieved by completing 200 hours of thrusting with the ion propulsion system and collecting extensive data on the performance of the advanced solar array and the sophisticated radio system built by Motorola. While other important experiments on these and other technologies lie ahead, the mission now ranks as another success in NASA's long and impressive history of travels beyond Earth orbit.

Deep Space 1 is now more than 17 times as far away from Earth as the moon. Radio signals, traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take over 45 seconds to make the round trip.