Cassini Update - August 11, 2006
- From: baalke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 11 Aug 2006 11:02:27 -0700
Cassini Significant Events
for 08/03/06 - 08/09/06
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Wednesday, August 9,
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 3 (DOY 215):
Due to superior conjunction and the reduction in communications quality
with
the spacecraft, science this week was limited to Magnetospheric and
Plasma
Science (MAPS) instruments, as they performed magnetospheric surveys.
More
specifically, the Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrument (RPWS)
mapped the
occurrence of plasma waves in the Saturnian magnetosphere to determine
their
role in magnetospheric processes, and performed a series of
observations to
establish the nature of the solar wind.
NASA Astronauts Stephanie Wilson and Piers Sellars visited the Cassini
real-time operations area this evening.
Monday, August 7 (DOY 219):
Minimum separation angle between Earth, the spacecraft, and the sun
occurred
this morning. The Radio Science Solar Corona Characterization
Experiment
continued with the spacecraft maintaining a high-gain antenna to Earth
attitude and 1896 bps telemetry.
A project level Operations Readiness Test began today and will run till
the
end of the week. The purpose of the test is to exercise the flight
team in
the processes and procedures to be followed in the event that an Orbit
Trim
Maneuver fails to execute. The test conductor, in this case the
Spacecraft
Operations Office manager, came up with the fault to use in the test.
It
was decided that at the end of S23 - remember that we are currently
flying
S22 on the spacecraft - an OTM would only partially execute, the
spacecraft
would be found to have entered safe mode, the next OTM will be due to
execute within three days, and the day after that a live moveable block
would need to be uplinked if we were to salvage a Radio Science Saturn
occultation. Six days after that the next background sequence would be
scheduled to start. Remember this is only a test!
The Science Operations Plan Update kickoff meeting for S26 was held
today.
Wednesday, August 9 (DOY 221):
Cassini's own Project Scientist gave a talk to the flight team today
entitled "Messages from the Icy Saturnian Satellites."
A delivery coordination meeting was held today for a patch delivery of
Mission Sequence Subsystem version D12.0.1. The delivery was driven by
the
need to fix problems in SEQGEN core that impact the ability to split
sequences. It is believed that S25 has a high potential for being
larger
than the space available to store it on the spacecraft, and thus
splitting
would be necessary. As a patch release, D12.0.1 will overlay D12.0 and
will
be invisible to users.
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 Spsce 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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