His presentation, which described the role of science validation for the EO-1 mission was extremely well received by launch participants and their families. All phases of the EO-1 orbital insertion and subsequent maneuvers have been nominal. Initial engineering grade earth images were obtained from ALI on Saturday, November 25th, LAC on Sunday, November 26th, and Hyperion on Monday, November 27th.
Results look very promising.
EO-1 is expected to be in formation flying one minute behind Landsat on December 15, 2000. This problem is currently believed to be related to relative antenna orientations and ground station reception practices. A set of procedures have been implemented which effectively curtails the transmission anomalies but somewhat reduces the data transmission opportunities each day. Ongoing characterization of the conditions under which transmission anomalies arise is expected to result in procedures guaranteeing transmission reliability far exceeding acceptable levels for retrieving EO-1 data in a timely fashion. Dr. A. Duque Portugal had earlier visited GSFC and met with Code 923 staff regarding remote sensing technologies that might be applied to agricultural problems.