PFS issue on Venus Express, PFS scanner stuck in its closed position Options

[Rakhir]

Bad news for PFS. I hope they will be able to solve this issue.

The PFS scanner is stuck in its closed position.
Several attempts to move it were made at the time, but the instrument did not respond. Experts suspected a thermal problem by which low temperatures were blocking the rotation of the mechanism.
Another attempt to move the scanner was made on 16 March 2006, in warmer flight conditions. Unfortunately, the scanner remains stuck.

The next opportunity to perform another test on the spacecraft will be end of April, after the Venus Orbit Insertion.

From http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=38964

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Glum news on the subject from the May 22 Aviation Week: "ESA engineers will decide at the end of July, at a final commission review, whether they can recover full use of a scanning mirror on the PFS spectrometer...Tests following the probe's arrival into final orbit around the planet on May 9 showed the mirror to be blocked at the calibration point, and hopes that the changing temperature regime might release it have not materialized. However, engineers say there is enough overlap among the probe's instruments to minimize data loss."

That last is the usual sour-grapes language we hear in such cases. PFS was one of the two key instruments on VeX -- it was not regarded as worth funding without both of them, and it and VIRTIS were supposed to work simultaneously to help make each other's atmospheric measurements comprehensible. This is a very serious loss.