NASA Cassini Significant Events for 10/16/03 – 10/22/03

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, October 22. 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 .

Final activities for C39 included a Visual and Infrared Mapping
Spectrometer (VIMS) flight software test, Cosmic Dust Analyzer
decontamination, Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) High Frequency
Receiver calibration, clearing of the ACS high water marks, and
participation in a DSN array demonstration.

C40 began execution on-board the spacecraft on Sunday, October 19.
Initial activities included RWPS high rate observations, use of the
Magnetometer Science Calibration Subsystem, and power-on of the Ka-band
Exciter and Ka-band Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier in preparation for
Gravitational Wave Experiment #3.

The science planning team process for C42, the first approach science
sequence, concluded this week with a handoff package being provided to
Uplink Operations. The Science and Sequence Update Process for this
sequence began with a kickoff meeting, and release of the stripped
Spacecraft Activity Sequence Files to participating teams.

Official port#2 occurred for the C43 Science Planning Team process. The
product has been merged and handed off to ACS for the end-to-end
pointing analysis.

On 16 October 2003, a Mission Event Readiness Review of the Deep Space
Mission System (DSMS) preparations to support the third Cassini
Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE) was conducted. The Project expressed
its gratitude for the fine work DSMS has done on the last GWE
activities, as well as the preparations completed toward the upcoming
activity. The Team finds that the DSMS system needed to support GWE #3
is on schedule and should be completed, including testing and document
preparation. The first and second gravitational wave experiments were
supported with a very similar DSMS system. No major risk items were
found, and four requests for action were written.

Scoping for C44, the last approach science sequence before tour, was
presented at this week’s Mission Planning Forum. Topics of discussion
included activities that have already been integrated, what’s coming up,
what’s new.

A Delivery Coordination Meeting for Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS)
version D10.0, the Solaris 9 port of the current Solaris 7 MSS software
version D9.1.2 was held this week. The delivery was accepted, and the
installation will be coupled with the workstation Solaris 9 upgrade. The
Mission Support & Services Office (MSSO) is maintaining a master
schedule, and is coordinating the installation and the adaptation. The
project is on track to have all systems upgraded by 1 Jan 2004.

Cassini 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, Calif., manages the
Cassini mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.