Apr 01, 2019

The spacecraft continues with operations for the mission’s Detailed Survey: Baseball Diamond phase. Each week during this phase the spacecraft executes a flyby of Bennu at a different observing angle. On March 28 and 29, the spacecraft performed Flyby 4, during which it observed Bennu with PolyCam, OLA and OTES at the 10 am local solar time position, from a distance of 3.7 km.

Due to severe winter weather conditions throughout Colorado on March 13, the facility where mission operations are conducted was closed for safety. Due to this emergency closure, a planned update to the spacecraft pointing could not be processed and uplinked. Consequently, the mission missed MapCam observations above approximately 20º north latitude on Bennu during Flyby 2. The team will evaluate whether there is a need to plan for additional observations in the future in order to meet science requirements. This decision will be made after assessing Flyby 7, which is scheduled for execution on April 18 and includes MapCam observations above Bennu’s 20ºN.