Mars Pathfinder Mission Status

21 March 1997


The spacecraft remains in good health and is currently about 49 million kilometers from Earth. No significant spacecraft operations were performed this week.

Entry, Descent, and Landing Flight Software Testing is progressing well. We completed an airbag retraction test in the Building 230 Sandbox last week, and have finished a set of parachute deploy and rocket ignition algorithm robustness tests this week. A couple of significant issues have come up in this testing which are likely to cause us to change flight software. A flight software change board meeting will be held on April 1 to determine what changes to make and what regression tests to perform.


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