Significant Event Report for Week Ending 8/25/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 08/25/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Tuesday, 08/22. 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.

This week's activity onboard the spacecraft continued to center on the
Command & Data Subsystem Flight Software (CDS FSW) Uplink and Checkout.
The CDS team has successfully executed the procedure to patch the software
load residing on the solid state recorders and load the on-line string with
Version 7.0 of the CDS flight software. This completed the update of both
Engineering Flight Computers with Version 7.0 software. Version 7.0 has been
operating normally and CDS_A remains prime at this time. A final procedure
began that will activate all 10 new telemetry modes and verify several new
solid state recorder management capabilities. This will execute over five
days and use several Deep Space Network (DSN) passes.

The Telecommunications Team briefed Division 33 engineers and management
on the effect superior conjunction had on Cassini's telecommunication and
radiometric performance. The program plans to continue to gather data
during conjunction events in order to characterize expected performance
during orbital operations, particularly the period around Saturn Orbit
Insertion.

A Preliminary Sequence Integration & Validation (SIV) meeting was held
this week for the final activity in C21. This is an instrument turn-on
sequence that will be uplinked next week and execute after the conclusion
of CDS FSW Checkout.

A briefing was held for the Jupiter Science Phase G (C25) portion of the
Jupiter Subphase. Phase G covers the period of +72 days from Jupiter
closest approach to +120 days and will be the final sequence containing
Jupiter observations. Approval was given by the Program Manager for the
Science Planning Virtual Team (SPVT) to begin implementation. Later in
the week the SPVT held the kickoff meeting for the C25 cruise sequence.

Science Planning presented the post-Jupiter SPVT schedule to the Cassini
Design Team. Highlighted was a reduction in development time for the
Science Planning portion of sequence generation. Navigation also made a
presentation on the Maneuver Automation Process currently in development.

Representatives from the Uplink Operations Team (ULO) and System
Engineering (SE) met with Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) personnel to
continue development discussions of the Cassini Information Management
System (CIMS). Progress continues and a prototype delivery is expected
late this year.

Cassini Radio Science Team personnel gave a talk at the Azusa City Library
in Azusa, California, to 50 residents from the area. Six hands-on
classroom activities/demonstrations have been approved by Media Relations
for posting to the Cassini external web site and will appear there
shortly. Outreach staff met with members of the Orange County Office of
Education and assisted them in the development of their travelling
classroom activities on magnetism. This collaboration will continue
through the coming months.

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.

Media Relations Office

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

California Institute of
Technology

National Aeronautics and Space
Administration

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Telephone (818) 354-5011