Critical Design Review “Season”

There’s been a lot going on with MAVEN since the last PI blog post. The instrument teams have built “engineering models” of each instrument; these allow the teams to test out the hardware and software now, and later to test procedures on the ground before doing them on the spacecraft after launch. They’ve done early interface tests with spacecraft test hardware that ensure that the instruments and the spacecraft can talk to and understand each other. Some flight components are being built early, for both the spacecraft and the instruments. The mission design and navigation team is refining the trajectory for the cruise, orbit-insertion, and science-mapping phases of the mission. And the mission operations team is finishing the design of the ground data system, the science planning process, and the ops processes.

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