The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on Oct. 27 from the
Deep Space Network tracking complex at Madrid, Spain. 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" page
at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.
Wednesday, Oct. 21 (DOY 294):
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday saw the conclusion of the 49th
Project Science Group meeting held at JPL.
Onboard the spacecraft, the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer performed
three observations as part of the Solar Wind-Aurora campaign. The
Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) spent about 26 hours this week
mapping the northern hemisphere of Saturn to determine upper
troposphere and tropopause temperatures and executed a stray light
calibration. Sunlight falling on the CIRS telescope can possibly be
scattered into the instrument by mirror imperfections. To quantify
the effects of ring particle impacts on the mirror performance, CIRS
monitored the scattered infrared solar radiation as a function of the
offset angle from the sun. Imaging Science (ISS) spent about 25
hours searching for lightning on Saturn, observed the transits of
Rhea across Dione and Tethys, Enceladus across Tethys, and Titan
across Rhea. ISS also observed the outer moon Bestia for about 6
hours, performed a post equinox, edge-on observation of the E Ring,
and performed Saturn photopolarimetry with the wide-angle camera,
measuring the intensity and polarization of reflected light.
Thursday, Oct. 22 (DOY 295):
Both S55 and S56 are currently in the Science and Sequence Update
Process (SSUP), the final sequence development process before uplink
to the spacecraft. Today teams submitted any final Spacecraft
Activity Sequence Files (SASF) as part of the S55 Final Sequence
Integration and Validation phase. Changes this late in the process
are permitted for health and safety reasons only, rather than for
science enhancement. For S56, the first SASFs were delivered as part
of the Sub-Sequence Generation (SSG) process. Next week the
Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation (PSIV1) cycle 1
merged background sequence products will be released along with the
stripped subsequences. These stripped subsequences are for review
purposes in the PSIV1 phase and the basis for the detailed
subsequences used to build the PSIV2 cycle 1 sequence products.
Monday, Oct. 26 (DOY 299)
The development process for the S54 E7 DOY 305 Live Update Block
kicked off today. A special orbit determination solution was
delivered at 4:00 PM; the Sequence Phase List of Ancillary Files was
out by 7 PM. The Go/No-go meeting will be Tuesday afternoon at 2:00
PM. The schedule is somewhat compressed as the uplink windows are
Friday night and Saturday night/Sunday morning.
Final products from the S57 Science Operations Plan process were
handed off from Science Planning to Uplink Operations today. The DSN
station allocation file has been posted for team access. Negotiations
are almost complete and are pending only the final two days.
Tomorrow the S57 SSUP kickoff/SSG waiver disposition meeting will be
held.
Tuesday, Oct. 27 (DOY 300)
The USTREAM TV archive of the Cassini scientists answering students'
questions about Saturn has received 630 views since it was posted one
week ago. This translates to up to 19,000 people, depending on how
many viewers were individuals versus classrooms of 30 students. To
view the video go to: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2391081.
An encounter strategy meeting was held today to cover the period
between Nov. 2 and Nov. 21, Enceladus flybys E7 and E8, and maneuvers
221-223.
The Cassini-Huygens Analysis and Results of the Mission (CHARM)
teleconference for October was held today. Topic: "The Search for
Activity on Icy Satellites that aren't Enceladus." The presentation
package is online and available at:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/products/MultimediaProductsCharm/
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