Significant Event Report for Week Ending 3/31/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 03/31/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Goldsone
tracking station on Wednesday, 03/29. 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.

The Spacecraft Team spent this week monitoring the Cassini spacecraft and
gathering performance statistics for the orbiter while under reaction wheel
control. On Monday March 27 the spacecraft was commanded to return to RCS
Mode (Reaction Control Subsystem) as planned. The AACS A7 Flight Software
Checkout has now concluded. All checkout activities were accomplished and
spacecraft performance was nominal. The flight team is now gearing up for
CDS Flight Software uplink and checkout.

Cassini Outreach participated in the Solar System Educator Program
institute. Thirty three master teachers from around the country were
trained in topics relating to Cassini/Huygens, our classroom demonstrations
and activities, and additional solar system exploration topics.

Two Project meetings were held this week to aid in determining the scope of
the Jupiter Plan resulting in Project Management approval with two
constraints relating to sequence load size and the timing of product
deliveries.

The Cassini Mission Planning Team completed its update of the Consumables
Notebook for the Instrument Checkout-2 subphase. The Consumables Notebook
is updated once per subphase, and keeps track of spacecraft consumables
used prior to each update.

A FSW Delivery Coordination Meeting (DCM) was held this week for the
Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) Flight Software Version 6.0.0. The
software was conditionally accepted pending a Spacecraft Office (SCO) check
to determine that both the on board CDS version 5 FSW and the new version 7
CDS FSW will both accept the new MIMI FSW.

The Radio Science System Team led discussions between the Radio Science
Receiver (RSR) developers and the Data Flow System Engineers in TMOD to
coordinate data processing with the upgraded system (commonly referred to
as DSS-25 upgrade) to be installed at the three major tracking facilities.

The Instrument Operations Functional Requirements Document was revised and
reissued. All of the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) and Visual and
Infrared Mapping Spectrometer Subsystem (VIMS) Operational Interface
Agreements (OIAs) and Software Interface Specifications ( SISs) have been
completed.

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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