Editing Mars Express (section)

=== The interplanetary cruise phase ===
This five month phase lasted from the end of the Near Earth Commissioning phase until one month prior to the Mars capture manoeuvre and included trajectory correction manoeuvres and payloads calibration. The payload was mostly switched off during the cruise phase, with the exception of some intermediate check-outs. Although it was originally meant to be a "quiet cruise" phase, It soon became obvious that this "cruise" would be indeed very busy. There were [[star tracker]] problems, a power wiring problem, extra manoeuvres, and on October 28, the spacecraft was hit by one of the largest [[solar flare]]s ever recorded.