Cassini Significant Events for 06/19/03 - 06/25/03

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Cassini Significant Events
for 06/19/03 - 06/25/03

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Canberra tracking
station on Wednesday, June 25. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent
state of health and is operating normally.  June 24 marked the four-year
anniversary of Cassini's Venus 2 flyby. Information on the present position
and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position"
web page located at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm .

Instrument activities this week for Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS)
included a High Frequency Receiver calibration, conclusion of the Saturn
orbit insertion cyclic test, execution of a Solar Conjunction Experiment
cyclic, and an Instrument Expanded Block (IEB) exercise. The Composite
InfraRed Spectrometer was woken up to perform a functional test and load of
IEBs.

Cassini has entered Superior Conjunction with the Sun-Earth-Probe angle at
5.0 degrees.  Minimum separation of 0.344 degrees will be reached next week.

Two sequence change requests (SCR) were submitted as part of the C39
sequence development activity.  Both were approved at an SCR approval
meeting held this week.

Participating teams submitted all Cassini Information Management System
inputs for C40.  This was followed by a kickoff meeting to begin the Science
Planning Team process.

Events this week for the S14 Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP)
Verification and Validation (V&V) activity included generation and
distribution of new Sequence Phase List of Ancillary Files, Pointing Design
Tool configuration, SEQGEN data configuration, ephemeris, geometric, and
rider epoch files, processing of IEB loads by CDS for loading to the SSR,
and release of a fully merged S14 background sequence.  This version of the
sequence will serve as the basis for the stripped subsequences in the
Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation part 2 process.

A V&V status meeting was held to review current activities, and any schedule
changes.  As a result of the on-going S14 uplink V&V exercise, potential
changes to the SSUP document have been identified.

The Planetary Data System Small Bodies Node representative met with the
Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) High Rate Detector (HRD) Co-Investigator last
week in Chicago to finalize the HRD component of the CDA archive plan.  The
archive SIS will be updated with new products generated from the HRD data.

Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer flight software (FSW) version 7.1,
Cassini Plasma Spectrometer FSW version 4.0, and Ion and Neutral Mass
Spectrometer FSW version 6.0 were delivered to the Project Software Library
(PSL).  The Spacecraft Operations Office also delivered Reaction Wheel Bias
Optimization Tool (RBOT) V1.0. to the PSL. RBOT is designed to compute the
Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) bias to accomplish RWA momentum management,
and optimize consumption of RWA resources.

Radio Science Subsystem (RSS) personnel concentrated this week on
characterizing the anomalous behavior of the Ka-Band Translator (KaT) for
the on-going Solar Conjunction Experiment #2.  The KaT continues to operate
in its bad region.  Several attempts to correct this by power cycling the
KaT have been unsuccessful.  History and current status were presented this
week to the Cassini Project Manager, staff, and Huygens Probe
representatives.  The Project approved a request to turn on the S-Band
Transmitter pending receipt of a statement from Alenia, the Italian
manufacturer of the KaT, or ASI, supporting the expected thermal change.
The necessary cognizant engineers will be available next week.  In the
meantime, RSS personnel are working on preparing a data package to provide
to Alenia. On a positive note, monopulse tracking seems to have improved,
and coherent Ka1 and X-band data data collection was mostly nominal except
for a few outages over Goldstone due to the X-band transmitter tripping off,
Radio Science Receiver problems, and monopulse throwing the antenna off
point.

A delivery coordination meeting was held for the Science Opportunity
Analyzer (SOA) version 9E for PC Windows, and Linux platforms.  This is an
intermediate delivery until Mission Sequence Subsystem D9.1.1, which will
include new SOA, CORE, and Cassini adaptation becomes available.

A Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) developer presented a
tutorial on how to use  eXtensible Style sheet Language for Transformations
(XSLT) to read the CIMS XML files and convert them to any format.  This
allows users to automate some functions that previously had to be done
manually.  This was followed by all-day workshops on Wednesday and Thursday
to finalize the CIMS requirement for performing a Science Planning Attitude
Spread Sheet - Spacecraft Activity Sequence File comparison.

Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Cassini
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration


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