Significant Event Report for Week Ending 10/6/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 10/06/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry
was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, 10/04. The
Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating
normally. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Where is Cassini Now?" web page.

Activities this week included a Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) Friction Test,
Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) power on, Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA)
articulation correction, Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) Low Energy
Magnetospheric Measurement Subsystem (LEMMS) platform rotation, and a
repeat of the Radio Science Subsystem (RSS) X-up, Ka-down activity from
ICO-1.

RADAR powered on and warmed up nominally in preparation for an on board
simulation of Titan encounters. The GENMOS_R module was used for the first
time in flight for this activity to obtain rasters of Jupiter and the
Sun. Initial plots show very good results.

This week saw the start of execution of the "repeating template" designed
for Jupiter observations. The template is five days in duration, contains
a specific set of observations, and will repeat continuously until ten
days into the C23 sequence when a change in observations is desired. The
first Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Jupiter downlink contained 383
images and was supported by Instrument Operations (IO) and the Multi
Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL). The data files were
automatically delivered to the ISS Team Leader at University of Arizona
and preliminary analysis shows excellent quality data.

CDA personnel proudly reported that 91 mass spectra were obtained within
the first 3 days of the template. The spectra were predominantly detected
when the instrument was pointing toward Jupiter. Altogether around 2700
events were obtained. Instrument status is nominal. The CDA team thanks
everyone involved who helped obtain these great results.

Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) personnel reported that the
instrument came through the first 3 days of the Jupiter template in
excellent shape. The RPWS portion of the sequence appears to have
executed flawlessly. For the first time, internal data management tools
were used to count packet production, compare actuals to modeled usage,
and decide on board to execute a high rate observation near the end of the
Goldstone observation period using some of the difference between
allocation and actual usage. The RPWS team is extremely happy with the
first template results and commends the entire flight team for a job well
done!

Science Planning is now in the process of creating the products required
to hand off the C24 sequence to the Sequence Virtual Team (SVT).
Additionally, the first product delivery occurred for the C25 SPVT
implementation activity. The C25 sequence is the last sequence that
contains Jupiter-related observations.

A Satellite Orbiter Science Team (SOST) meeting was held to continue the
discussion and integration of the icy satellite flybys for Tour.

Mission Planning hosted a Working Group Teleconference discussing the
Saturn dust particle model and its affect on the Cassini main engines.

This past week was a period of high daily support for the Mission Support
and Services Office (MSSO). Over the next sequences the team will be
supporting about 2-3 tracks per week, with very intense data collection.

The MSSO Requirements and Design Review was held this week. The review
went smoothly with valuable contributions made by presenters and attendees.

The Jupiter Millennium Flyby website is making good progress towards its
public launch within the next week.

Additional information about Cassini-Huygens is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Cassini will begin orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004, and release its piggybacked Huygens probe about six months later for descent through the thick atmosphere of the moon Titan. Cassini-Huygens is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

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