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NEWS - Press Releases - 2000

Cassini Significant Event Report
For Week Ending 06/16/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Canberra tracking station on Wednesday, 06/14. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Instrument flight software checkout continued this week with ISS collecting additional darkframe datasets, and CIRS execution of a calibration activity. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Where is Cassini Now?" web page.

A major activity for this week was Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM) 14. Prior to uplink, the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA), Magnetospheric Imaging (MIMI), Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS), Magnetometer (MAG), and Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instruments were transitioned to SLEEP mode. The TCM-14 Mini-Sequence was then uplinked to the spacecraft. The maneuver executed nominally at 10:00 AM PDT, with a main engine burn of about 6 seconds and 0 .58 meters per second of velocity change. TCM-14 targets the correct position for a Jupiter gravity assist allowing Cassini to arrive at the Saturnian System for a Phoebe flyby and Saturn Oribit Insertion. Following TCM-14, CDA, MIMI, UVIS, MAG and RPWS were returned to the ACTIVE mode.

The sub-sequence generation phase for C21 is now complete and work has begun on the sequence integration and validation phase.

Outreach participated in a number of events this week: attended a day-long familiarization of the Outdoor Education Program run by the Orange County Office of Education, participated in an all-day workshop sponsored by JPL's Educational Affairs Office discussing California and national science and mathematics standards, assisted in the selection of new Solar System Educators, and performed demonstrations of several classroom activities to 23 teachers from Arizona Indian reservation schools.

Project Science Group Meeting (PSG) #23 was held June 5-9 at the University of Nantes in Nantes, France.

The Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) delivered the L1A data processing system for Jupiter Flyby to MIPL integration and test on June 13, and is on schedule to deliver the system to operations in mid-August.

The Preliminary Tour Operations Verification and Validation (V&V) Plan was issued this week. This document outlines the strategy to verify and validate Project Level 3 requirements, Operations Interface Agreements, Operations Concepts, and to serve as a guide for development of Office/Team V&V plans.

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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Last Updated: 04.06.2005
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