Cassini Weekly Significant Events for 03/02/00 – 03/08/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, 03/08. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally.  The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Where is Cassini Now?" web page ( "http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/today/" )
 
Final activities for the C18 sequence included a MAPS data playback, Periodic Engineering Maintenance, and the powering off of CAPS, MIMI, CDA, RPWS, and MAG instruments.  C18 deregistered on board the spacecraft on Sunday, March 5.    On Monday March 6, the C19-Flight Software Checkout background sequence was uplinked and went active.
 
Also on Monday, Version A7.7.6 of the AACS Flight Software was successfully uplinked and loaded into the flight computers. The software was first uplinked and loaded into the Solid State recorders on March 6 and 7. Following the uplink, the backup computer was loaded with the new flight software. The prime and backup computers were then swapped and the new flight software took over control of the spacecraft (the backup computer continues to run the old flight software). All steps in the procedure went as expected and all indications are that the software is functioning nominally. Further checkout of the new software will commence later this week.
 
An Orbiter Science Operations Working Team (OSOWT) telecon was held to continue work on the science integration of the Jupiter Subphase.  This meeting focused on the period from -10d to Jupiter closest approach. Assignments were made to the Science Teams to develop the detailed designs for the observations in this period.
 
Cassini Outreach hosted a workshop featuring Cassini science, science investigation, and spacecraft flight and engineering lessons at TechEd2000. The meeting itself was valuable by providing new perspectives on teaching and schools in the future.
 
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration