Significant Event Report for Week Ending 2/18/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 02/18/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Madrid tracking
station on Tuesday, 02/15. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of
health and is operating normally. On board activities this week included the
Telemetry-ranging interference test and a High Watermark Clear. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Where is Cassini Now?" web page (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm)

The final Sequence Change Request approval meeting for the Activity Plan (AP)
phase of the C19 background sequence was held this week. The AP Spacecraft
Activity Sequence File (SASF), its subsequences, and Space Flight Operations
Schedule (SFOS) will be released early next week.

Project development leads met to review and coordinate in-progress plans for
Instrument Checkout 2 (ICO-2) and Jupiter development readiness. Areas
addressed included planned capabilities, user needs, drivers, schedule
dependencies, acceptable risk, V&V plans, and risk areas. Seven actions were
assigned to address concerns in key areas. The overall schedule is tight but
achievable.

Educational outreach met with the Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope
(GAVRT) planning group to develop teacher enhancement activities utilizing
GAVRT and Cassini observations of Jupiter.

Five Requests for Action (RFA) were submitted to the project as part of the
Project Science Group (PSG) meeting held in January. All requests have been
accepted and action items assigned to the appropriate teams.

The Project approved the Jupiter flyby sequence timeline from Jupiter - 55 days
through Jupiter - 25 days. Some open issues remain to be worked.

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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