Cassini Significant Events for 06/15/05 - 06/22/05 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Wednesday from the Goldstone tracking stations. 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 . Activities this week: Final science activities in the S11 sequence included Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) and Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) observations of the F-Ring, ISS movies of Saturn's southern hemisphere, and low-rate magnetospheric surveys performed by the Magnetospheric and Plasma Science (MAPS) instruments. Beginning on Friday, the entire suite of MAPS instruments, which include the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA), Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), Magnetometer Subsystem (MAG), Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) and Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS), simultaneously performed low-rate outer magnetospheric surveys to observe the variability of magnetospheric boundaries at several geometrically similar apoapses. On Saturday the RADAR instrument obtained distant full-disk radiometry of Titan to help constrain the thermal properties of the surface. Optical remote sensing activities this week included ISS movie feature tracks of Saturn's winds and clouds in the southern hemisphere, a Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) mosaic of the entire ring system near apoapsis, Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observations to detect flashes from meter-sized interplanetary impactors on Saturn's rings in order to constrain the flux of impact population for the ring's origins and evolution, and CIRS integrations of the rings to constrain their thermal properties, and determine their composition. Thursday, June 16 (DOY 167): At a "SCIENCE 101, A SCIENCE LECTURE SERIES FOR THE NON-SCIENTIST" talk, a member of the Cassini Science Team gave a presentation on unraveling the secrets of Saturn's moons. Because Nature often yields her secrets through the most bizarre examples, the talk focused on the unusual satellites Enceladus and Iapetus, the violent events that shaped these satellites, their connection to Earth, the stars, and life itself. The S15 Science Operations Plan update process kicked off today. It will run for about five weeks and will conclude mid-July. A kick-off meeting for the DOY 177 Live Inertial Vector Propagator (IVP) update and live moveable block (LMB) process was held today. The Navigation team delivered the orbit determination files by end of day and the flight team will spend the next few days reviewing them. A Go/No Go meeting will be held for the update on Monday Uplink Operations (ULO) radiated a real-time command for an overlay to the Reaction Wheel Assembly bias that will execute tomorrow. Friday, June 17 (DOY 168): The S14 Project Briefing/Waiver Disposition meeting was held today. Members of the Science Planning team will be generating a hand-off package for the sequence to be given to ULO. On Monday the Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP) will begin. The last commands were sent today for the S11 sequence. ULO uplinked a relative timed Immediate/Delayed Action Program to change the CDA wall impact detection parameter, a CAPS flight software (FSW) checkout file, and a CAPS overlay during FSW checkout to turn the actuator off for the Radio Science Subsystem High Gain Antenna Boresight Calibration on Tuesday of next week. CDA team members confirmed the execution of their file, and the sequence leads confirmed the registration and activation of the CAPS FSW checkout program. A member of the Mission Support and Services Office presented Cassini talks to groups of 5th and 6th grade students at a career day at Aldama Elementary School in Los Angeles, CA. Approximately 350 students attended. Science Planning gave a Cassini presentation to 150 middle school girls and 50 adults for Space Pioneers in Kansas City, Missouri. A new Cassini poster is available through the Cassini Outreach Office. This poster highlights Saturn and early tour results. English and Spanish language versions are available, the latter in limited quantity. To order, hit the "Contact Us" link at the very bottom of the Cassini web site. Allow at least 4-6 weeks for delivery. Today at approximately 5:11 PM the S12 background sequence began execution. The sequence will run for 43.9 days ending on July 31, and will contain Orbit Trim Maneuver #25, an Enceladus targeted flyby, solar conjunction, 6 non-targeted flybys of Titan, Tethys, Pan, Telesto, Rhea, and Epimetheus, and will contain two occultation periods occurring on DOY 177 and 196. Cassini achieved apoapsis today and began its tenth orbit around Saturn. Monday, June 20 (DOY 171): At the S12 LMB/Live IVP Go/No meeting today it was decided to proceed with the LMB but not with the Live IVP update. The leads for S15 received the first DSN allocation file pertaining to that sequence. It contained no changes that would cause significant impact to the data volume, so the decision was made to cancel the S15 Science Allocation Panel meeting scheduled for today. A real-time command was uplinked today for an INMS patch to FSW. Since no new requests for waivers were generated for the S13 sequence, the waiver disposition meeting was cancelled. Tuesday, June 21 (DOY 172): The S14 SSUP development process kicked off today. The files for the Sub-Sequence Generation phase were distributed to the instrument teams, Spacecraft Operations Office (SCO), and Navigation for review. An image of the Cassini Crater on Earth's moon was taken by the European Space Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft, and dedicated to the Cassini-Huygens mission team. The occasion was the European Geoscience Union conference in Vienna, April 2005, when new results from both missions were presented. Saturn Observation Campaign members have shown the Cassini Crater along with Mons Huygens on the moon to star party audiences. Here is a picture of both lunar features: http://soc.jpl.nasa.gov/experience/gallery-photo.cfm?id=243 For the full story go to: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEM4GN1DU8E_0.html Wednesday, June 22 (DOY 173): Today a non-targeted flyby of Titan occurred. An image of Saturn's rings taken with the sun on the opposite side of the ring plane is Astronomy Picture of the Day today. From this view the rings have similarities to a photographic negative of a front view. For example, the dark band in the middle is actually the normally bright B-ring. The ring brightness as recorded from different angles indicates ring thickness and particle density of ring particles. A delivery coordination meeting was held today for the SCO tool Flight Software Development System (FSDS) version 2.19. FSDS is a simulation environment for the Cassini ACS subsystem. Wrap up: Check out the Cassini web site at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for the latest press releases and images. 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. --- To unsubscribe from Cassini Spacecraft Updates, send a message to xxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --- Visit the JPL Cassini home page for more information about the Cassini Project: <http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/>
