After two days, and nights, intensive work with the micropropulsion experiments on Prisma there is both good and bad news to report.
The good news is that all MEMS thrusters are responding as expected. Hundreds of cycles have been commanded to the individual thrusters and telemetry data showing detailed signatures of voltages, currents and temperatures have all been nominal.
The bad news is that a leakage of gas has most likely occurred on the high pressure side of the propellant storage and feed system, that is upstream of the isolation valve that was opened yesterday. As a consequence, we cannot verify delivered thrust as planned. A more exact origin is not known at this point, but it is currently under investigation. The micropropulsion experiments are halted for time being and other experiments have started in order to make maximum use of the valuable time in space.
The micropropulsion onboard Prisma is a passenger experiment and has no impact on the mission itself or any other experiments onboard.
