Thank you for visiting the Deep Space 1 mission status information site, completing its third week on the list of most frequently visited logged sources in the solar system for information on this technology validation mission. This message was logged in at 8:10 pm Pacific Time on Friday, November 13.

The mission operations team today sent commands to the spacecraft to return it to its normal cruise configuration. On Wednesday Software onboard Deep Space 1 designed to protect the spacecraft in case of unusual events detected a possible problem with the spacecraft's star tracker, prompting the software to put the craft in a predefined safe configuration. The star tracker, cleverly named because it tracks stars, helps determine the spacecraft's orientation; this is not one of the advanced technologies onboard DS1 for evaluation but is a new and sophisticated device. For reasons that are not yet understood, the unit was unable to report its orientation to the spacecraft computer. The spacecraft's protective software took several steps to correct the problem and ultimately placed the spacecraft in the safe configuration. The software worked exactly as designed, and all of the spacecraft's systems remained healthy and safe. The star tracker resumed normal operation shortly after the onboard protective system took action and is continuing to work well.

Early next week, tests of the autonomous navigation system and the combination camera/imaging spectrometer will be conducted as part of its technology validation.

Analysis of the wealth of data collected during Tuesday's first test of the ion propulsion system continues. This work is supplemented with data from laboratory tests of ion thrusters of the same design and from space-based tests of smaller systems. In the first test, the thruster turned off after about 4 and a half minutes of thrusting. The operations team is proceeding with development of plans for the next experiment with the normal prudence that is appropriate for operating a probe in deep space. The next tests with the thruster probably will be in the second half of next week.

Deep Space 1 is now more than 8 times as far away as the moon. Each day it recedes from Earth by nearly 150,000 kilometers, or more than 90,000 miles.