Cassini Significant Events for 09/29/05 - 10/05/05 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Wednesday, October 5, from the Canberra 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 . Thursday, September 29 (DOY 272): In last week's report it was mentioned that the project had decided to go after the approximately 88Mb of data lost during the Hyperion DSS-14 70m playback on DOY 270. After discussions with Spacecraft Operations, Mission Planning, Science Planning, Program Management, and the sequence leads, the strategy selected was to move the SSR-B record and playback pointers to protect the Hyperion data. The necessary files were radiated on DOY 272 to move these pointers. CDS confirmed via telemetry that the pointers had moved to the correct positions. The data will be played back during the DOY 277 DSS-14 track, Tuesday, October 4. A Cassini Design Team meeting was held to review the Team/Office baseline development plans for the Spring 2006 version D12 Mission Sequence Subsystem delivery. The purpose of the meeting was to ensure a common understanding of the capabilities being planned and the rationale behind the priorities that have been established, to understand the schedule constraints, and to obtain project management approval of the plan. It has been decided to cancel the S16 simulation coordination and procedure review meetings since no activities have been identified that require simulation in the Integrated Test Laboratory prior to sequence uplink. Science Planning chaired the S16 Science Allocation Planning meeting today for the purpose of distributing available sponge bits amongst interested parties. Sponge bits represent available data volume that is given away to the teams at this stage in the Science and Sequence Update process. The sequence leads do not expect any further changes to DSN allocation, so much of the data volume that was being held as margin is given to the teams for science. Prior to the meeting, the Science Planning lead determines how much extra data volume is available and teams request the data volume that they need. If more data volume is requested than is available, negotiations are made during the meeting. In this instance 18.5 Gbits of data were available and there were no conflicts. Friday, September 30 (DOY 273): SOST hosted a Dione/Rhea preview meeting. Planned science objectives and activities were presented. JPL Media Relations has released an image advisory on the recent Tethys and Hyperion flybys. This was the closest flyby to date of both bodies. Tethys has a scarred, ancient surface, while Hyperion is a strange, spongy-looking body with dark-floored craters that speckle its surface. For more information go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Monday, October 3 (DOY 276): A Titan Atmospheric Working Group meeting was held today to discuss the Titan 7 flyby data and implications for future Titan flyby altitudes. An amazingly clear picture of Hyperion is Astronomy Picture of the Day today. The sequence leads began uplink of the Instrument Expanded Block files in support of the S15 sequence. Five files were sent. S15 will begin execution on board the spacecraft on Saturday, October 8. Tuesday, October 4 (DOY 277): SSR partition B4 has completed playback and it has been confirmed that the lost RADAR data between 269T06:00:16 and 269T06:21:49 has been replayed. The RADAR team sent a message to program members announcing that all the missing Hyperion data, 85 Mbits of science and engineering packets, and 0.02 Mbits housekeeping, have been received. Final sequence development for S17 began today with a kick off meeting. Initial sequence products will be released for review later today. An encounter strategy meeting was held today for the Dione 1 through Titan 8 flybys. This covers the period from October 11 through October 28, and includes Orbit Trim Maneuvers 38-40. 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 leave-cassini-@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --- Visit the JPL Cassini home page for more information about the Cassini Project: <http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/>
