Cassini Weekly Significant Events for 03/16/00 – 03/22/00
The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, 03/22. 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/" )
The Spacecraft Team spent this week monitoring the Cassini spacecraft and gathering performance statistics for the orbiter while under reaction wheel control. This is the last activity as part of the AACS version A7 Flight Software checkout. All tests have completed nominally and the team is very pleased with spacecraft performance.
Educational Outreach made presentations to 300 2nd graders and 14 of their teachers, and to 120 8th graders and their 2 teachers at schools in Granby, CT. Additional presentations were made to more than 50 representatives of NASA’s Educator Resource Center Network, showing various Cassini classroom demonstrations and activities.
The Titan Orbiter Science Team (TOST) met to formulate an allocation plan based on the RADAR experiment acquiring 20% and 25% surface coverage on Titan and understanding the implications to the other science instruments for these plans. The group succeeded in developing the proposed plans and learning the trades between the instruments in accommodating the minimum RADAR surface coverage requirements.
A Project Briefing was held on the Jupiter Science Phase C and D portion of the Jupiter Subphase. (-25 days from Jupiter closest approach to Jupiter closest approach.) The purpose of the meeting was to review the Phase contents in detail and obtain the Project Manager’s approval to begin the Science Planning Virtual Team’s (SPVT) implementation of this Phase. A follow up meeting has been scheduled to further discuss the issues before approval is given for this Phase.
The Satellite Orbiter Science Team (SOST) met to begin the integration of observations of the icy satellite flybys in the Saturn Tour. At the meeting the science instruments provided their observational desires for the Iapetus flyby in the Tour. Assignments were given to work the integration issues for this flyby, and the observational desires for other satellite flybys were discussed.
A coordination meeting for MSS D7.1 OPS testing was held. This delivery is for the SUN workstations, and provides a new command database and corresponding update to SEQ_GEN, the first delivery of Power Predictor, APGEN for Solaris V2.5 and 2.6 (provides capability comparable to the HP version), and PDT with new functionality.
The Engineering build of HSS (High Speed Simulation) with the new CDS & AACS FSW has been received, installed, and is undergoing TMOD testing. It is still on track for the scheduled 4/05/00 delivery.
The Distributed Object Manager (DOM) Science Operations and Planning Computer (SOPC) User’s Guide has been distributed locally and to the remote sites.
A flight software upgrade was approved for the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer Subsystem (VIMS). RADAR installed a "beta" version of CASPER on the SOPC and produced C-kernel files for Titan Science Planning. RADAR also utilized the Pointing Design Tool (PDT) and appropriate modules for the first time for the C22 ICO-2 observations. This was a valuable exercise in testing tour planning tools.
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
