Cassini Significant Events 07/07/10 - 07/13/10
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on July 13 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. 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/mission/presentposition/.
Wednesday, July 7 (DOY 188)
The Spacecraft Operations Office sent updated Composite Infrared
Spectrometer (CIRS) V6.0 Instrument Flight Software to the spacecraft
today.
On Thursday, CDS will perform a query to verify final conditions for this
procedure. Flight software checkout will occur later in July.
A meeting was held today with Project staff personnel and people from the
Planetary Protection Office at NASA HQ to review the status of planetary
protection compliance for Cassini. At issue is the matter of the level of
risk of the spacecraft unintentionally impacting one of the moons of
Saturn in the course of conducting the tour, and specifically Enceladus
and Titan, the two moons of most biological interest. The consensus at
the conclusion of the meeting was that Cassini is in compliance, and that
further reviews will be scheduled as events warrant.
Thursday, July 8 (DOY 189)
A kickoff meeting was held today for the S65 Sequence Implementation
Process. Port 1 for the first set of input files from the teams occurs
July 23.
A new class of moons in the rings of Saturn has been identified that
create distinctive propeller-shaped gaps in ring material. This marks the
first time scientists have been able to track the orbits of individual
objects in a debris disk. Observing the motions of these disk-embedded
objects provides a rare opportunity to gauge how the planets grew from,
and interacted with, the disk of material surrounding the early sun. To
view the full feature, movie, and images link to:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleases/newsrelease20100708/
Friday, July 9 (DOY 190)
Radio Science and Science Planning have concurred that the "on
the shelf" Live Movable Block (LMB) for DOY 205 is good to go with
no updating. As a result the LMB update process scheduled to begin next
week has been cancelled and the "c" version of the
mini-sequence, released during sequence development for S61, will be
approved and uplinked to the spacecraft.
Saturday, July 10 (DOY 191)
Orbit Trim Maneuver (OTM) #257 was performed today. This was the
cleanup maneuver after the Titan 71 flyby. The main engine burn began at
1:14 AM PDT. Telemetry immediately after the maneuver showed a burn
duration of 4.829 seconds, giving a delta-V of 0.825 m/s. All subsystems
reported nominal performance after the maneuver.
Monday, July 12 (DOY 193)
On DOY 193, a Solid State Power Switch (SSPS) trip occurred, the 31st
such trip since launch. This switch controls the Fields and Particles
pallet heater. The heater was not on at the time, and system fault
protection cleared the tripped state. In the next week commands will be
sent to reset the SSPS trip counter.
On July 12, master teachers participating in an astrobiology workshop at
the NASA Ames Research Center were given advance notice of the Fall 2010
edition of the Cassini Scientist for a Day Essay Contest. Educators from
19 States and Puerto Rico attended.
An image of Rhea, Janus and the rings was Astronomy Picture of the Day
today. Check it out at:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100712.html
Tuesday, July 13 (DOY 194)
This week the Optical Remote Sensing instruments performed Titan
cloud monitoring, and the Magnetospheric and Plasma Science instruments
were occupied with a magnetospheric boundaries campaign. The Ultraviolet
Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) performed extreme and far ultraviolet slow
scans across the visible hemisphere of Saturn, and CIRS took data for a
Saturn mid-infrared map, which will help determine upper troposphere and
tropopause temperature of Saturn with spatial resolution of about two
degrees of latitude and longitude. The Magnetometer performed an
instrument calibration by rolling about an axis other than Z for
determination of sensor offsets.
ISS and the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) spent time
building a Saturn wind speed template by staring and shooting every 10
minutes to create a mosaic in longitude. CIRS measured oxygen compounds
in Saturn¹s stratosphere as a function of latitude with VIMS riding
along.
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