Cassini Significant Events for 10/07/04 - 10/13/04

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Cassini Significant Events
for 10/07/04 - 10/13/04

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, October 13. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. 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 .

On-board activities this week featured more varied Imaging Science Subsystem
(ISS) observations than in previous weeks.  In addition to movies of
Saturn's rings, ISS performed a global color map of Iapetus, numerous
observations of small satellites used for orbit determination, diffuse ring
images, and Phoebe spectrophotometry.  The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph
(UVIS) observed a stellar occultation interior to the B ring, which provided
a high-resolution study of low optical depth regions.

Commands were approved and uplinked to the spacecraft this week to perform a
live update for Iapetus, to turn off the Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument
collimator, perform a Cosmic Dust Analyzer decontamination, and clear a
global variable as part of the scheduled cleanup after the Attitude Control
Subsystem (ACS) 8.7.1 flight software update and ACS flight computer swap.
The Iapetus live update will execute on October 15, with closest approach on
October 17.  The S04 background sequence will then conclude on October 18.

The Spacecraft Operations Office ran a successful test of the Iapetus Live
Inertial Vector Propagator (IVP) Update in the Integrated Test Laboratory
(ITL) this week. The Flight Software Development System (FSDS) run also
completed successfully.  The ACS data from the test was reviewed and the
files were verified for uplink.  The pointing difference, during the Iapetus
observation, between the FSDS C-Kernel and the Preliminary Sequence
Integration and Validation (PSIV) 2 C-Kernel is 4.1 mrads.  This is
consistent with known ephemeris differences.

Science Planning has adjusted the schedule for Science Operations Plan (SOP)
Implementation deliveries.  The decision to modify the schedule was made in
order to provide relief to the flight team as they support additional
workload on the sequence development process as a result of last week's
update of the Cassini reference trajectory.  The only deliveries affected
are for the last five sequences of the tour, S37 through S41.  Preliminary
port 2 for S37/S38 occurred on Friday of last week.  The next delivery in
support of SOP Implementation occurs on November 10.

The official port for the S08 SOP Update process occurred this week.  The
products were merged and delivered to the ACS team for end-to-end pointing
validation.

The Titan Orbiter Science Team (TOST) and Satellite Orbiter Science Team
(SOST) met to begin to re-integrate the Titan b, Titan 3, and Enceladus-4
flybys.

A Program internal science talk was given this week on recent ISS satellite
discoveries.  The presentation covered why instrument teams are interested
in locating additional satellites, and the process used by the imaging team
to find them.

S05 development had the tightest time constraints for modifications as a
result of the release of the new reference trajectory.  Last week the
Sequence Team (ST) participated in a Sequence Change Request (SCR) approval
meeting, command approval meeting for the Instrument Expanded Blocks to be
uplinked to the spacecraft, and a final sequence approval meeting.  In the
last week, stripped subsequences were produced for use in the final FSIV
merge, the merge was produced, products generated, and the Sequence of
Events listing and Spaceflight Operations Schedule were generated. All this
was done with no slip to the development schedule.  An unexpected benefit of
the new reference trajectory was the determination made by Science Planning
that a live IVP update would not be necessary during S05, and thus, no ITL
testing for those additional products would be required.  The ST Lead has
expressed much appreciation for all the hard work everyone put in to get
this sequence out on time.  S05 begins execution on Monday. October 18.

The Instrument Operations and Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory have
begun preparations to support the display of Titan-a ISS and VIMS data in
near real-time.  Interaction with Media Relations, JPL Audio/Visual, and
Cassini Outreach are underway.

Mission Planning has released a Titan-a mission description. It is a brief,
concise description of the Titan-a encounter events, including an estimated
playback schedule for all instruments.

Delivery meetings were held this week for Maneuver Automation Software (MAS)
4.5, MDT V8.1, and MAPDF_GEN V8.1.  In addition, a delivery coordination
meeting was held to review RADAR build-5 ground software to be used to
process the Ta data.  The software has been tested and is ready for use.

The Mission Support & Services Office (MSSO) reported that last week the
Flight Control Team supported 7 DSN passes, and uplinked 21 command files to
the spacecraft.

Laminated images representing the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft during Saturn
Orbit Insertion, a map of participating countries, and a selection of images
will be included in a time capsule celebrating the 50th anniversary of the
North Museum of Natural History and Science in Lancaster, PA. The capsule
information will be displayed at the museum October 16-17. The selected
images are on the Cassini Multimedia webpage
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/mission/index.cfm

Cassini Science Planning presented  "Cassini-Huygens: The Real Lord of the
Rings" during DePaul University's Space Sciences symposium for 150 k-12
educators, and again at the Swift Art Gallery, Los Angeles, for 40 members
of the public.

Cassini Science Planning participated in "Journey Week" in Menominee,
Michigan.  During the week-long event, 1727 students and 72 teachers and
adults from 8 different elementary, middle and high schools learned about
the Cassini-Huygens mission and its exciting science results.  This is the
second year Cassini has participated in this program.

Science Planning and Huygens Probe Science & Engineering staff co-led a
Solar System Ambassador Training class. This two-part training session
focused on Titan and the Probe Mission. Over 50 members of the Ambassador
network were trained on these materials.

For the most recent Cassini information, press releases, and images, go to
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

The Cassini-Huygens mission 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, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
D.C.  JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.


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