Significant Event Report for Week Ending 10/25/2002

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 10/25/02

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, October 23. 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.

On-board activities included setting of the CDS flight software equivalency bit, a memory readout of Assisted Load Format addresses for beginning and end of flight software loads, a Reaction Wheel Assembly momentum unload, a Stellar Reference Unit calibration, transition from Reaction Wheel to Reaction Control Subsystem control, and a high watermark clear.

Additional instrument activities included Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) High Frequency Receiver calibrations and Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS), Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, and Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph stellar observations of Fomulhaut, Canopus, epsilon Orionis, alpha Leonis, lambda Scorpii and eta Ursa Majori. ISS performed a geometric calibration and observations of Saturn. A total of 59 images was delivered to Southwest Research Institute on Monday, with a select set of images displayed on JPL monitors within an hour of generation of the data files. Cassini is currently traveling at 28,330 kilometers per hour and is 284.662 million kilometers from Saturn.

The B version of the C35 background sequence products have been published to the Distributed Object Manager. A preliminary Sequence Integration & Validation Sequence Change Request meeting is scheduled for next week. SIRTF has requested DSN passes on 6 and 9 January 2003. This will result in a change to the DSN allocation file for C35 but will not impact Gravity Wave Experiment #2. The 29th session of the Cassini Project Science Group (PSG) was held this week at JPL. Representatives from all instrument teams came to the lab to participate.

Mission Support and Services Office and Instrument Operations personnel have completed testing of the Virtual Private Network (VPN). The first router with VPN hardware will be shipped to RPWS next week. Engineering Change Requests for Cassini Information Management System 2.4 involving Science Planning Attitude Spread Sheet implementation, Prime/Rider instrument coordination, and Data Volume Calculation have been released to the flight team for review and impact.

Software Requirement Certification Review meetings were held for RPWS and Cosmic Dust Analyzer flight software builds. Both have been accepted for uplink in December. Mission Assurance presented a Risk Management briefing to Principle Investigators who are at JPL attending PSG meetings. The talk covered an introduction to risk management, some background on the Cassini process and several sample risk statements. PIs have been tasked to identify risks relative to the health & safety of their instruments, as well as any risks that would threaten their instrument science or mission objectives. This group will convene again at the January 2003 PSG, to disposition and obtain concurrence on the risks generated as a part of this exercise.

The Cassini Planetarium Show has delivered a script for review, and signed on Robert Picardo to narrate. Mr. Picardo is known to many as a member of the cast from the Voyager television series.

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.

Media Relations Office

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

California Institute of
Technology

National Aeronautics and Space
Administration

Pasadena, Calif. 91109.
Telephone (818) 354-5011