Status Report

Cassini Weekly Significant Events for 12/06/01 – 12/12/01

By SpaceRef Editor
December 14, 2001
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he most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, December 12. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. “Present Position” web
page, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/ .

Recent instrument activities included two Radio and Plasma Wave Science High
Frequency Receiver calibrations. Engineering activities taking place onboard
the spacecraft this week include an Attitude Control Subsystem high-water
mark clear and the uplink of the Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS) D7.6.1
Modules.

Execution of C29 continues to proceed normally with the ongoing
Gravitational Wave Experiment, of which 16 days out of 40 days have been
completed. Spacecraft health remains excellent, maintaining a quiet
spacecraft on reaction wheel control. Instruments remain quiet as well with
MAPS data being collected and downlinked.

The Huygens Recovery Team task force had its Quarterly Progress Meeting this
week. The results from the last Probe Checkout and Probe Relay Test #4 were
discussed, as well as some mission and engineering analyses. The results
from Probe Relay Test #4 were excellent and essentially demonstrated that
the recovery mission will satisfy the mission objectives.

The Spacecraft Operations Office held an internal meeting to discuss the
critical milestones for the final Attitude Control Subsystem and Command &
Data Subsystem Flight Software uplinks and the Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI)
critical sequence. This meeting was in response to inputs from the SOI
Smart Burn algorithm review held last week.

The Saturn, Cross-Discipline, Ring, and Magnetosphere Target Working Teams
(TWT) held meetings last week to continue integrating the tour. The TWTs
are now integrating orbits 10 through 15 to meet the next delivery milestone
in February 2002. In addition, a Titan Orbiter Science Team meeting was held
to integrate the period outside of +/30 minutes for Titan flybys T11 through
T22.

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.

SpaceRef staff editor.