Significant Event Report for Week Ending 12/14/2001

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 12/14/01

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday,
December 5. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the spacecraft's position and speed can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page.

Recent instrument activities included two Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver calibrations. Engineering activities taking place onboard the spacecraft this week include an Attitude Control Subsystem high-water mark clear and the uplink of the Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS) D7.6.1 Modules.

Execution of C29 continues to proceed normally with the ongoing Gravitational Wave Experiment, of which 16 days out of 40 days have been completed. Spacecraft health remains excellent, maintaining a quiet spacecraft on reaction wheel control. Instruments remain quiet as well with MAPS data being collected and downlinked.

The Huygens Recovery Team task force had its Quarterly Progress Meeting this week. The results from the last Probe Checkout and Probe Relay Test #4 were discussed, as well as some mission and engineering analyses. The results from Probe Relay Test #4 were excellent and essentially demonstrated that the recovery mission will satisfy the mission objectives.

The Spacecraft Operations Office held an internal meeting to discuss the critical milestones for the final Attitude Control Subsystem and Command & Data Subsystem Flight Software uplinks and the Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) critical sequence. This meeting was in response to inputs from the SOI Smart Burn algorithm review held last week.

The Saturn, Cross-Discipline, Ring, and Magnetosphere Target Working Teams (TWT) held meetings last week to continue integrating the tour. The TWTs are now integrating orbits 10 through 15 to meet the next delivery milestone in February 2002. In addition, a Titan Orbiter Science Team meeting was held to integrate the period outside of +/30 minutes for Titan flybys T11 through T22.

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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