From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Thu Sep 08 2005 - 13:39:13 UTC
>From: "Cassini Project" <info_at_jpl.nasa.gov>
>Reply-To: <info_at_jpl.nasa.gov>
>Subject: Cassini Update - September 2, 2005
>Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 15:39:49 -0700
>
>Cassini Significant Events
>for 08/25/05 - 08/30/05
>
>The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Tuesday, August 30, from
>the Goldstone tracking stations. 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 .
>
>Thursday, August 25 (DOY 237):
>
>Orbit trim maneuver #29 (OTM-29), the Titan 6 cleanup maneuver, was
>successfully performed today. The main engine burn began at 11:31 am PDT.
>A "quick look" immediately after the maneuver showed the burn duration was
>9.3 seconds, giving a delta-V of 1.4 m/s. All subsystems reported nominal
>performance after the maneuver.
>
>The Cassini Integrated Test Laboratory team is currently hosting a member
>of
>the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument team at JPL. CDA has brought
>their engineering model to be connected to the ITL for flight software
>testing. The hardware will be here till mid-September.
>
>Friday, August 26 (DOY 238):
>
>The S15 sequence leads coordinated a test to be performed in the ITL of the
>Radar Titan 8 observations and special playbacks of data for that flyby.
>Analysis is underway to verify that the tests were successful.
>
>Nine Instrument Expanded Block (IEB) files were uplinked to the spacecraft
>in support of S14. Sequence leads were able to verify that 8 of the 9 IEBs
>executed nominally and the readouts of telemetry were as predicted. There
>were no dropped packets for these files.
>
>Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) team members will verify the ninth file.
>S14 will begin execution on Tuesday of next week.
>
>Saturday, August 27 (DOY 239):
>
>An additional IEB file and the S14 background sequence went up to the
>spacecraft today.
>
>Monday, August 29 (DOY 241):
>
>The 37th Cassini Project Science Group Meeting got underway this week at
>Imperial College, London, England.
>
>The S17 Science Operations Plan (SOP) Update process officially began
>today.
>The SOP Update is a phase in the sequence development process where
>scientists and other operations team members are allowed to make limited
>observation and activity design changes from what was developed in SOP
>Implementation. This allows for late breaking discoveries and other
>information learned in prior sequences to be incorporated into future
>observations that have not completed their sequence development. S17 was
>originally archived back in April of 2003 so it has been over two years
>since scientists have looked at this product. The kick-off meeting, led by
>the Science Planning Team Lead, lays out the ground rules and schedule
>which
>all team members must abide by in order to incorporate their changes.
>
>SOP Update for S16 continued this week with the completion of the
>Spacecraft
>Operations Office and Science Planning Team analysis of the S16 sequence
>merge. Output products were posted to the program file repository for
>review.
>
>A kick-off meeting was held for the S14 DOY 248-250 Live Update process for
>an Inertial Vector Propagator update and Radio Science Live Movable Block.
>The current version of the schedule for this process has Navigation
>delivering the orbit determination (OD) solution at 1700 PDT today, with
>Science Planning (SP) releasing its epoch time shift and GEOEPOCHS file 2
>hours later, and Radio Science
>(RSS) starting its analysis at that point and continuing for the next
>8 hours. Navigation is aiming for an 1100 PDT OD solution release, so SP
>and RSS can get an earlier start. The Go/No-Go meeting is scheduled for
>tomorrow so the instruments and SP are expected to have their analysis
>ready
>by then. Update: It's a go!
>
>Spacecraft Operations Office, Navigation, and Uplink Operations files for
>OTM-30 have been delivered and placed in the program file repository. The
>maneuver approval meeting will be held today at 5:00pm PDT. Uplink begins
>Tuesday at 07:05 AM PDT. On-station time is 11:45 AM for a 1:05 PM burn.
>
>Tuesday, August 30 (DOY 242):
>
>The S14 background sequence began execution today. The sequence will run
>for 39 days and will conclude on October 8. During S14 there will be two
>targeted flybys, two dust hazards to be avoided, eight OTMs, one live
>movable block, and three live IVP updates. Forty-three Deep Space Network
>(DSN) tracks will be used to downlink over 49.7 Gb of data.
>
>A Design Delivery Review was held for Multi-Mission Image Processing
>Laboratory software version D34. This delivery contains many small updates
>to Imaging Science Subsystem & Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer
>uplink and downlink software modules which correct product labels and
>eliminate operations workarounds. The delivery was accepted by all
>projects
>and MGSS. The software will go on-line on September 9.
>
>The S17 Sponge Bit meeting was cancelled today due to a delay in the
>release
>of the DSN allocation file. The file is necessary for Cassini Science
>Planning to determine if there have been any changes to the amount of data
>that the DSN is capable of receiving. If they can receive more, then data
>volume that was held as margin is given to the teams for science
>acquisition. The allocation file will be delivered by the end of the week
>with the Sponge Bit meeting to follow.
>
>Orbit trim maneuver #30 (OTM-30), the apoapsis maneuver preceding Titan-7,
>was successfully completed today. The main engine burn began at 13:05 am
>PDT. A "quick look" immediately after the maneuver showed the burn
>duration
>was 91.35 seconds, giving a delta-V of 14.3 m/s. All subsystems reported
>nominal performance after the maneuver.
>
>A news release has been issued regarding the age of the "tiger stripes"
>discovered on Enceladus. Cracked features approximately 140 km long,
>spaced
>about 40 km apart and running roughly parallel to each other, act like
>vents
>spewing vapor and fine ice water particles that have become ice crystals.
>This crystallization process can help scientists pin down the age of the
>features. For the text of the full release and other materials, go to the
>Cassini Web Site at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
>
>Wrap up:
>
>Check out the Cassini web site at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for the latest
>press releases and images.
>
>The Cassini-Huygens mission 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, manages the
>Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
>D.C. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.
>
>
>
>
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