Cassini Significant Events for Friday, 11/05/99 through Thursday, 11/11/99
Based on the most recent spacecraft telemetry data acquired from the Canberra tracking station on Tuesday, 11/09, 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 Cruise 17 background sequence activated this week. The first two on-board events were the setting of the off-sun time constraint (an
activity that occurs at the beginning of every sequence) and successful execution of a roll to place CDA (Cosmic Dust Analyzer) into the
ecliptic plane. It is felt that this will dramatically increase the number of hits for CDA, and, therefore, increase the amount and quality of
science that they are able to obtain. The Spacecraft will stay in this orientation until the end of C17.
The Cassini Program had its Quarterly Review with NASA Headquarters personnel this week. Presented were significant accomplishments
since the last review, planned accomplishments for the upcoming quarter, an overview of FY’99 – FY’00 budgets and workforce, and overall
Program status, issues, and concerns.
A summary of Outreach activity for Fiscal Year 1999 has been prepared, senior Cassini staff members have been identified to oversee
revisions to all of the text in the Cassini public website, and a Saturn-related activity for children will be revised and added to the JPL
Spaceplace website.
Jupiter planning moved forward with the presentation of a Draft Jupiter Science Planning and Sequence Operations Concept, and a preliminary
Jupiter Subphase Science Planning schedule. The operations concept describes both the Science planning and the sequencing process to be used
for the Jupiter mission phase. The schedule addresses the decision to develop the Jupiter Subphase in a more Tour-like environment as
opposed to the current cruise operations.
The Titan Orbiter Science Team (TOST) Group held a two day meeting to move forward on the allocation process for the Titan flybys. Very good
progress was made at this meeting toward the allocation of the flybys centered around +/-30 minutes from closest approach. Subsequent
meetings have been scheduled to converge on an allocation recommendation for Project Science Group (PSG) approval in January of 2000.
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
