Significant Event Report for Week Ending 9/27/2002

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 09/27/02

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Tuesday, September 24. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the spacecraft's position and speed can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page.

The C33 sequence concluded this week and C34 began nominal execution. Instrument activities this week included Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver calibrations, and start of a 10-day Cosmic Dust Analyzer activity to continue investigation of the dust down-stream of Jupiter.

Due to transmitter problems at Deep Space Station 25, the scheduled command to clear the ACS high watermarks was not sent. The command will be sent next week.

The Huygens Probe team reported a successful execution of last week's Probe Checkout #10. During the 5-hour checkout the Probe is put through all possible stages of the actual descent sequence. Each instrument is turned on for the periods it will be used as the probe descends. Data is taken by each instrument and then sent to Cassini for transmission to Earth. The checkout allows each instrument and subsystem, such as power, computers, and transmitter to be evaluated.

The data engineer for the Planetary Data System Planetary Plasma Interactions Node data visited Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer and Cassini Plasma Spectrometer team members last week at the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, and the University of Michigan to work on archive plans.

Uplink Operations has released a draft of the Tour Science and Sequence Update Process Operations Plan to System Engineering. The document has been distributed for review within the program.

Uplink Operations has used a version of SEG to generate a keyword file to be used in next week's Project Interface Test. DSS-26 has been upgraded with new Network Simplification Project software and the test will prove that SEG can generate a file that can be correctly read by the station.

The D8.0.4 version of the SSR Management Tool has been released for user acceptance testing. Updates have been made in response to user feedback and the software re-released for further testing.

Mission Support and Services Office personnel presented the Cassini web architecture plan at the System Engineering Round Table meeting. Topics discussed included development, test and operational environments; how the Mid-Tier and database connections work; and outstanding issues and concerns. The presentation was well received. The developers and System Engineering seemed satisfied that the architecture is sound and that MSSO is doing a good job designing and supporting Web services.

A new slide set is available to order through Finley Holiday Films. The set, identified as JPL-55, highlights the joint Cassini-Galileo Jupiter encounter of December 2000. Sets can be ordered directly from Finley Films at http://www.finley-holiday.com. Project members can request sets for presentation purposes directly through the Galileo and Cassini Outreach offices.

The New Cassini Website has been completed and awaits approval of the JPL Office of Communication and Education prior to release.

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 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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