6.1 Problems

  The first 3 orbits of IMAPS operations were very difficult ones with an ominous outlook. Initially, IMAPS appeared to be in serious trouble. During a second allocation of 3 orbits that began 9 hours later, we began to understand our problems well enough that we could work out a strategy for productive observing, one that minimized the impact of our difficulties and led to productive results. Except for some very minor losses of data stored on the spacecraft tape recorder (§7.8), all of the problems were recognized at the time, i.e., none came as a surprise long after the mission when the data were being reduced. However, in many cases the root causes were identified only after careful investigations much later; in some cases investigations revealed the correct answers more than a year after the flight.