Significant Event Report for Week Ending 3/10/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 03/10/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, 03/08. 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.

Final activities for the C18 sequence included a MAPS data playback,
Periodic Engineering Maintenance, and the powering off of CAPS, MIMI, CDA,
RPWS, and MAG instruments. C18 deregistered on board the spacecraft on
Sunday, March 5. On Monday March 6, the C19-Flight Software Checkout
background sequence was uplinked and went active.

Also on Monday, Version A7.7.6 of the AACS Flight Software was successfully
uplinked and loaded into the flight computers. The software was first
uplinked and loaded into the Solid State recorders on March 6 and 7.
Following the uplink, the backup computer was loaded with the new flight
software. The prime and backup computers were then swapped and the new
flight software took over control of the spacecraft (the backup computer
continues to run the old flight software). All steps in the procedure went
as expected and all indications are that the software is functioning
nominally. Further checkout of the new software will commence later this
week.

An Orbiter Science Operations Working Team (OSOWT) telecon was held to
continue work on the science integration of the Jupiter Subphase. This
meeting focused on the period from -10d to Jupiter closest approach.
Assignments were made to the Science Teams to develop the detailed designs
for the observations in this period.

Cassini Outreach hosted a workshop featuring Cassini science, science
investigation, and spacecraft flight and engineering lessons at TechEd2000.
The meeting itself was valuable by providing new perspectives on teaching
and schools in the future.

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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