The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Monday, November 24. 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 .
On-board activities this week included Radio and Plasma Wave Science
High Frequency Receiver calibration, uplink and execution of a
Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) event filter mini-sequence,
uplink of the MIMI Instrument Expanded Block (IEB) load and data rate
throttle down Immediate/Delayed Action Program, uplink and load of a
Composite InfraRed Spectrometer IEB, uplink and execution of a Cosmic
Dust Analyzer (CDA)High Rate Detector checkout mini-sequence, and an SSR
repair.
The Radio Science team continues to collect coherent X-band data and,
when available, Ka1 data as part of the continuing Gravitational Wave
Experiment #3 (GWE). Deep Space Station 55 provided its first support
for GWE#3 this week. The station became operational on November 1st,
2003, and is equipped with Ka-band receive capability. This means that
both X-band and Ka1 data can be acquired. Support was provided for
three consecutive days with a final pass planned for Wednesday of this
week.
At the request of the Cassini Project Scientist, investigators from
Boston University have been granted observing time on the Hubble Space
Telescope to view Saturn's aurora around the time of Saturn orbit
insertion next July. This effort will be in conjunction with the
Cassini spacecraft's measurement of the solar wind impinging upon the
Saturnian system. The aurora are believed to be caused by interactions
between the solar wind, the Saturnian magnetosphere, and the atmosphere
of Saturn itself.
Official port 1 deliveries were made as part of the Science Operations
Plan Implementation process for tour sequences S19 and S20.
The Science Planning Team process for Cruise sequence C43 concluded this
week. A handoff package was passed to Uplink Operations to support the
sequence generation process that will begin next week.
The C42 Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation (PSIV) phase 1
science and sequence update process package was released for review as
part of the C43 sequence development process. The PSIV 1 Sequence
Change Request /Sequence approval meeting will be held next week.
The Spacecraft Operations Office delivered ground software tools RBOT
V2.0 and FSDS V2.17.
RBOT is a tool used by the AACS team to bias the reaction wheels to
minimize low speed wheel time. FSDS is an AACS flight software
simulation program used to validate and verify AACS flight software.
A delivery coordination meeting was held for Command Database version
D10B. This version includes command changes for CDA, INMS, and MIMI, and
is planned for use with Mission Sequence Subsystem D10.2 to be delivered
in March of next year.
Mission Assurance met with the Aerospace Corporation as part of an
ongoing JPL/Aerospace collaboration to further the practice of Risk
Management. Slides were produced to document the status of the
collaboration effort to date, including data gathering and inputs to a
Risk Management Storybook. The joint working group is scheduled to
present the status and results to date at next year's Space Systems
Engineering and Risk Management Symposium, scheduled for 17-20 February
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.
