Significant Event Report for Week Ending 10/13/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 10/13/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was
acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Tuesday, October 10. 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.

Activities this week included a Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) Slow Time
Memory Read Out (MRO), clearing of the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS)
Write Protect Bit, a High Water Mark Clear, and a RWA Unload. The Jupiter
Phase A - 5 Day Repeating Template continues with the second instance of
the template performed this week. Some of the Jupiter images from the
first template have been released and are available on the JPL web site as
well as the Cassini and Jupiter Millennium Flyby web sites (see below).

Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) personnel have reviewed the first
Jupiter system data obtained during execution of the 5 Day Template. UVIS
images are providing an excellent combination of spatial, spectral, and
temporal resolution of the Io torus. Instrument performance and
sensitivity is nominal, with observed counting rates within 30% of the
model of the torus calculated from Voyager and Galileo data. The torus
appears to "wobble" as Jupiter rotates, due to the magnetic field tilt.
Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) and Far Ultraviolet (FUV) spectral images show
numerous emissions from the Io torus, Jupiter aurora, and reflected
sunlight from the Jupiter atmosphere. Hydrogen/Deuterium Absorption Cell
(HDAC) and FUV channels provide 360-degree views of interplanetary
hydrogen Lyman-alpha emission, with peaks when the slit sweeps across
Jupiter.

The Cassini Program Manager and Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Team
Leader have made arrangements for a subset of ISS Jupiter images to be
displayed lab-wide at JPL using resources of the Multi Mission Image
Processing Laboratory (MIPL) and the JPL Media Relations office.

The RADAR team is continuing analyses of data taken just prior to the
start of Jupiter observations. Results to date indicate that the first
sequence using the Pointing Design Tool (PDT) and incorporating the module
GENMOS_R worked as planned. These data are providing valuable radiometric
calibration data, as well as RADAR beam pattern information. The RADAR
team has submitted a paper for inclusion in the Journal of Geophysical
Research's special issue, "First Results from Cassini." This paper will
discuss the RADAR results from the Venus-1 and Earth Flyby sequences.

The Integrated Test Laboratory (ITL) completed testing of the Cruise
Sequence 23 this week. Cruise sequence 23 is the sequence that contains
the Jupiter closest approach science activities. Included in the testing
was the GENMOS_CD module as well as a loading test.

The signed Cassini Archive Plan for Science Data, Version 1, was
distributed to NASA Headquarters, the Planetary Data System, Principal
Investigators, and Team Leaders.

The Jupiter Millennium Flyby website is now open and presenting assorted
material for visitors desiring information on studies of Jupiter being
conducted by Cassini, Galileo, the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope
project, and other Earth-based observers. Additional background material
will be added over the next few days, and the site will be updated as new
data come in from the spacecraft. Visit HREF="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby">http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby

An open house was held at The Max-Planck-Institut fur Kernphysik in
Heidelberg, Germany, home of the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument
flown on-board Cassini. During the day a multimedia presentation using
JPL movies of the Cassini model, Probe release, and Probe landing was
displayed. The CDA Model, multimedia presentation and copies of the
Cassini paper model were a big hit with the German public who are very
interested in space science and space probes.

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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