The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on Nov. 10 from the
Deep Space Network tracking complex at Canberra, Australia. The
Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and all
subsystems are operating normally.
Wednesday, Nov. 4 (DOY 308)
Today a meeting was held to present and discuss the results of the
Enceladus 7 flyby. The Spacecraft Team used AACS telemetry data
gathered from the 100 km E7 flyby to derive an estimate of the
Enceladus plume density and of the torque experienced by the
spacecraft due to the plume. After reviewing results from AACS and
the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), the Project gave the go
ahead to do the E9 flyby on reaction wheels. INMS data was in good
agreement with the AACS analysis. The E9 flyby is nearly identical to
the E7 flyby, but with different instruments having pointing priority.
For the E9 flyby, Science Planning had asked all teams to deliver two
sets of input files, one for reaction wheels, and one for thrusters.
The version on thrusters will be archived and the reaction wheel
version will continue on in the sequence development process.
Thursday, Nov. 5 (DOY 309):
Orbit Trim Maneuver (OTM) #221 was performed today. This was the
cleanup maneuver from the Enceladus 7 encounter on Nov. 2. The main
engine burn began at 2:44 AM PST. Telemetry immediately after the
maneuver showed a burn duration of 1.73 seconds, giving a delta-V of
0.298 m/s. All subsystems reported nominal performance after the
maneuver.
After the S55 final sequence approval meeting was held today, eight
Instrument Expanded Block files were uplinked for five instruments
and Optical Navigation. The background sequence will go up to the
spacecraft on Monday.
A scientist on the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team
wrote an update on the JPL Blog about the "First Morsels of Science"
coming back from the Enceladus flyby on Nov. 2. It is available at
http://blogs.jpl.nasa.gov/?p=58. The blog entry notes that mission
managers have cleared the spacecraft to do an April 28, 2010,
Enceladus flyby on reaction wheels, enabling scientists to do very
sensitive radio science measurements.
Friday, Nov. 6 (DOY 310):
At the S59 Science Forum on Nov. 2, it was pointed out that the Dione
2 flyby is only 1.5 days after the Titan 67 flyby, which brought up
an unlikely but not impossible scenario: If something were to happen
during or shortly after the T67 flyby such that the Project needed to
weigh the return of D2 science versus T67 science, which should be
considered of higher science importance?
To start the evaluation it is important to know that in this case the
Project regards the science on both flybys as important. Both Imaging
Science (ISS) and Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) observations
are tagged as being high priority science for both flybys. Science
Planning pinged members of the instrument teams to get their feedback
on, if they had to choose, which would it be? After reviewing the
responses, the answer was_ both flybys contain observations that are
at the highest priority. It would appear to be a draw. So now the
flight team would have to factor in what is happening operationally
at the time. There is no way in this still hypothetical case to
determine what the exact results would be, but factors in making a
decision include 1) what caused the incident, 2) is the DSN involved,
3) when is the next pass for downlink, 4) what is being kept on the
SSR, what is being overwritten, and when, 5) how much time does the
team have to decide, 6) is there time to command changes to what is
programmed in the background sequence, and, 7) are there other
scheduled onboard events that occur in the near term - such as a
maneuver or engineering activity - that might have an affect on the
plans that are made? It never is a simple decision, but at least the
flight team has given the matter some thought and will be prepared to
respond should it become necessary.
Monday, Nov. 9 (DOY 313)
The Target Working Team (TWT)/ Orbiter Science Team (OST) integrated
products for S60, covering orbits 131 through 133 in May and June,
2010, were delivered today. The integrated products are in their
final form and no re-integration is planned. The next step in
sequence development, Science Operations Plan (SOP) implementation,
will kick off on Nov. 23. The handoff package template from
integration to the SOP process has been updated to better track more
involved prime-rider pointing designs, and two new milestones have
been added to the S60 schedule for prime-rider coordination. Between
now and the kickoff, the instrument teams will be working on pointing
designs for the sequence.
Participating teams delivered Port 1 SASFs today as part of the SOP
process for S59. As was mentioned earlier in this report, the files
include the Enceladus 9 flyby as designed for reaction wheels.
Tuesday, Nov. 10 (DOY 314)
An image of the recently illuminated north side of Saturn's rings was
Astronomy Picture of the Day today. Check it out at:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091110.html
Science in a nutshell: This week ISS obtained wide angle camera data
for Saturn photopolarimetry 1x2 mosaics, collected images for
satellite orbit determination, searched for lightning on Saturn, took
a look at the outer moon Bestla, observed the E-ring at low
resolution, low elevation, and high-phase, and obtained narrow angle
camera images of Titan's shadow on Saturn. Looking at the shadow of
Titan on Saturn is useful for Titan aerosol science. This is a unique
geometry that only occurs a few times during the Extended Mission and
not at all in the prime tour or proposed Extended Extended Mission.
CIRS wrapped up the far-IR hemisphere mapping activity, with scans of
the northern hemisphere and pole of Saturn, and measured oxygen
compounds - H2O, CO2 - in the stratosphere as a function of latitude.
Magnetospheric and Plasma Science (MAPS) instruments continued the
southwest auroral campaign, began a magnetospheric boundaries
campaign, and began a southwest auroral campaign to observe the
auroral magnetosphere and Saturn Kilometric Radiation source regions.
The Cosmic Dust Analyzer conducted an observation that is part of the
ISD survey campaign.
UVIS performed several apoapse system scans of the Saturn
magnetosphere and mapped volatiles in the immediate neighborhood of
Enceladus. These icy atmosphere observations test the connection of
volatile changes to plume eruptions.
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