Significant Event Report for Week Ending 1/30/2004

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 01/30/04

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Monday, January 26. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm .

The first Approach Science sequence, C42, continued this week with completion of a flight software normalization procedure for Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) and Composite Infrared Spectrometer, upload of VIMS flight software version 8.1, clearing of the ACS high water marks, and continuation of CAPS and Radio and Plasma Wave Science solar wind observations.

The C43 Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation Sequence Change Request approval meeting was held, and stripped subsequence files published shortly thereafter for use by the instrument teams and the Spacecraft Operations Office (SCO).

The Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP) for the C44 sequence is underway. C44 stripped subsequence generation (SSG) files have been released for review and update. It was determined that no science allocation planning or waiver meetings were required for the SSG phase of the SSUP.

A meeting was held to discuss the implications of the requested ACS flight software update uplink windows on interwoven science activities during the week of 27 April 2004. An action was taken by SCO and Uplink Operations to produce a timeline of planned events.

The first of three planned Software Review/Certification Requirements meetings was held for Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) instrument diagnostic flight software. As the INMS team reviews data returned from the first upload they will determine if tests two and three are required.

Instrument Operations personnel produced a report of the analysis of filter wheel movement timing. The precise knowledge of the duration of movements allows for more flexibility in observation planning. The report was sent to the Imaging Science Subsystem Science Team for incorporation into their planning process.

A dataflow test to exercise the ability of the Huygens operations center in Darmstadt, Germany to receive 66Kbps real-time broadcast data as well as NERT TDS queries by Virtual Channel ID was held this week. This activity was a rehearsal for the Probe relay demo to be held in March of this year. A test report with the results of the dataflow test will be issued in the next few weeks.

The 33rd meeting of the Cassini Project Science Group was held this week at the California Institute of Technology, and at JPL in Pasadena, California. Attendees are very excited about plans for approach science and the start of tour operations.

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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