Cassini Status Update (Launch +2)
October 17, 1997

10:00 a.m. PDT

The Cassini spacecraft continues its over six-year journey to Saturn in excellent health this morning, according to Cassini deputy program manager Ronald Draper. Cassini is in attitude control cruise, following an uplink sequence last night to update engineering flight software. The star reference unit has been turned on and star data is now being used to update the spacecraft's orientation.

"Spacecraft health remains excellent, with no anomalies," said Cassini spacecraft development manager Chris Jones. At 9:00 a.m. PDT today, the spacecraft's velocity relative to Earth was a little under 4.2 kilometers per second. Velocity should decrease to about 4.1 kilometers per second by the end of the day. Telemetry recorded on Cassini's solid state recorder during launch will be played back this weekend.

The Cassini spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, at 1:43 a.m. PDT on Oct. 15

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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