Cassini Significant Events for 10/10/07 - 10/16/07

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Cassini Significant Events 
for 10/10/07 - 10/16/07

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on Tuesday, October 16,
from the Goldstone tracking complex. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent state of health and all subsystems are 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.

Wednesday, October 10 (DOY 283):

A Cassini image of Iapetus was Astronomy Picture of the Day today.  Check it
out at:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071010.html

The official port for the Science Operations Plan Update (SOPU) process for
S37 occurred today.  The products were merged and the reports were delivered
to the teams and AACS for the end-to-end pointing analysis.  In addition,
the SOPU process for S38 kicked off today.

Cassini Pinpoints Hot Sources of Jets on Enceladus.  Details at:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=780

A recent analysis of images provides conclusive evidence that the jets of
fine, icy particles spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus originate from the
hottest spots on the moon's "tiger stripe" fractures that straddle the
moon's south polar region.  The results of this Enceladus investigation are
published in the Oct. 11, 2007, issue of the journal Nature.

Thursday, October 11 (DOY 284):

The Spacecraft Operations Office conducted an engineering review of the
spacecraft activities to occur during the execution of S40.

Newly assembled RADAR images from the Cassini spacecraft provide the best
view of the hydrocarbon lakes and seas on the north pole of Saturn's moon
Titan, while a new RADAR image reveals that Titan's south polar region also
has lakes. For more information on this release link to
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=782

Monday, October 15 (DOY 288)

The CDS V10 Flight Software (FSW) installation and checkout activities which
began on Oct. 7 concluded today.  On Wednesday of last week the FSW was
loaded to the online CDS-B, and the checkout began.  SSR data formatter,
memory, and pattern tests continued through Oct. 13.  These were the first
pattern and memory tests performed on SSR-A since the V9 uplink and checkout
in February of 2003.  The memory tests erase all the FSW and library regions
on SSR-A.   On October 14, the FSW and library regions of SSR-B were copied
to SSR-A.  All activities wrapped up with the Composite Infrared
Spectrometer (CIRS) bus interface unit readout on Oct. 15.

Oct. 15th marks the 10th anniversary of the Cassini Launch in 1997.  To view
the project news release on this event, link to:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=783

A week-long meeting of the Cassini Project Science Group (PSG) began today.
This is the 43rd meeting of this group of scientists and flight team members
since the project began.  Since many of the major players would be present,
a Titan Atmosphere Model Working Group (TAMWG) meeting was held in
conjunction with the PSG meeting. 

The TAMWG reviewed the results of the Titan 30, 32, and 36 flybys.  There
was consistency between teams in the atmospheric density results obtained by
AACS, the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, and Navigation.  There are
biases between each data set, but the biases are consistent between the
different measurement types.   Of interest was the data from T36 since that
was the first southern hemisphere pass, at a latitude of -60 deg, since T7
in 2005.  The results showed the lowest atmospheric density profile versus
altitude observed to date, but close to what was seen at T19.  The next
Titan flyby is T37 on Nov. 19.  This flyby will sample a different latitude
- about -22° - also in the southern hemisphere, and the teams will be able
to observe if the low density continues at this location.

Tuesday, October 16 (DOY 289)

After confirmation from SCO that the FSW checkout was officially complete,
Uplink Operations sent files to the spacecraft for the Hyperion
mini-sequence.  The mini-sequence will begin execution about midday on
Thursday, Oct. 18.

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/>


[Index of Archives]     [NASA News]     [JPL Home]     [JPL News]     [NASA KSC]     [NTSB]     [Hot Springs]     [Yosemite Info]     [NASA News]     [Telescopes]

  Powered by Linux