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Posted by baalke on June 22, 2007, 10:02 pm
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Cassini Significant Events
for 06/13/07 - 06/19/07
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on Tuesday, June 19,
from
the Goldstone tracking complex. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent
state of health and all subsystems are 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.
Wednesday, June 13 (DOY 164):
This week, Cassini returned to Titan for its thirty-third targeted
encounter
with that moon. Closest approach was at 965 km altitude, latitude
84.5=B0 N -
near the north pole, traveling at a speed of 6.2 kilometers per
second, and
with a peak thruster duty cycle at 53.8%.This was the first dual data
playback with the recorder SSR-B as prime.
T32 is the eighth in a series of nine outbound Titan encounters. The
first
was T25 on Feb. 22, 2007, and the last is T33 on June 29, 2007. The
flyby
occurred just under two days after Saturn closest approach, and is the
highest latitude Titan pass on which the Ion and Neutral Mass
Spectrometer
(INMS) will be the prime instrument. It is the only pass that occurs
close
to midnight local time, on the ram side of Titan, while Titan is on
the
sunlit side of Saturn. This is a magnificent opportunity for in situ
science
of Titan's atmosphere in this unique geometry.
The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) performed high-resolution imaging
and
global-scale mapping of the bright-dark boundary, and the Visual and
Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) performed high resolution mapping
of
Titan's north pole for global mapping, did temporal change studies of
Titan's northern hemisphere, and performed a hot spot and lightning
search.
The Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) continued its search for
new
species in the far-IR region of the spectrum as well as mapped
temperatures
in the upper troposphere across the North Polar Region and in the
stratosphere around the disk. CIRS also gained the chance to map the
distribution of aerosols on the limb in detail.
The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed a solar ingress
occultation with sampling at mid-southern latitudes near 50 S. The
solar
occultation was observed with the UVIS EUV channel, which measures H,
H2, N,
N2 and some hydrocarbons from the exobase. The exobase is the lower
boundary of the exosphere, near 3000 km to about 600 km altitude,
where
molecules or atoms can escape to space just from their thermal
velocity
because there are not enough atoms or molecules above them to stop
them by
collisions. For more details on this flyby, go to:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/events/titan20070613/index.cfm
Thursday, June 14 (DOY 165):
Science for the remainder of the week focused on apoapsis approach
with ISS
observing the outer moons Mundilfari, Tarvos and Kiviuq, and
performing
long-term temporal monitoring of the F ring, the Cassini Plasma
Spectrometer
(CAPS) observed dusk-side magnetospheric boundaries at a variety of
latitudes, VIMS obtained an edge-on mosaic of the unlit face of the
entire
ring system near apoapsis and observed the E and G rings near 45
degree
A press release on some interesting CAPS and Magnetometer results
based on a
Nature paper was issued on June 14. The release outlines how Saturn's
moons
Tethys and Dione are flinging great streams of particles into space.
The
discovery suggests the possibility of some sort of geological
activity,
perhaps even volcanic, on these icy worlds. The full text may be
accessed
at:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=3D754
Spacecraft operations hosted an activities review for the S36 sequence
today. At these reviews SCO goes over what commands and activities
will be
needed during the sequence to maintain health and safety and nominal
operations for Cassini.
Friday, June 15 (DOY 166):
A member of the Cassini outreach team gave presentations to astronomy
and
public groups at Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Death Valley
National
Parks. Several thousand people attended the talks and eight Saturn
viewing
opportunities.
In May, the most trafficked part of the Cassini site was the raw image
gallery. The most downloaded file in May with over 46,000 downloads
was
Saturn's Auroras obtained by UVIS.
Several Cassini scientists are to be featured in a new History Channel
documentary series, "The Universe," a 13-part series that started on
May 29.
Each one-hour episode will be devoted to studies of a particular
planet or
topic. NASA/JPL missions will be featured throughout the series. One
full
episode will be devoted to Saturn. The program is scheduled to air
every
Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern through the end of August, with the
exception of
July 3. The episode focusing on Saturn will show on July 24 with an
additional episode on the outer planets on Aug. 14. For more
information
and the broadcast schedule, visit:
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=3Dmini_home&mini_id=3D54036
Saturday, June 16 (DOY 167):
Orbit Trim Maneuver (OTM) #116 was performed today. This is the
cleanup
maneuver for the Titan 32 encounter on June 13. The main engine burn
began
at 6:00 PM PDT. Telemetry immediately after the maneuver showed the
burn
duration was 4.59 seconds, giving a delta-V of 0.74 m/s. All
subsystems
reported nominal performance after the maneuver. With the hydrazine
efficient yaw turn rates, 49.4 g of hydrazine were used.
The Navigation team reported that OTM-116 marked the 100th maneuver
since
launch in October of 1997. The current record holder for a planetary
mission is the Galileo mission to Jupiter with 128 maneuvers during
the
lifetime of the mission. The Cassini flight team looks forward to
passing
that number some time in 2008.
Monday, June 18 (DOY 169):
The preliminary port for the Science Operations Plan Update process
for S34
occurred today. The files are being merged and reports will be sent
out
shortly. The official port is scheduled for Tuesday, June 26.
The instrument flight software (FSW) normalization process for CIRS
began
today. The process of normalization involves placing identical copies
of the
software on all four partitions of the SSR, then performing memory
readouts
to verify all copies are correct. When an instrument team has a new
version
of FSW, it is uploaded into two of the partitions. The SSR then
contains
two copies of the new version and two copies of the old version. The
old
version is retained until the instrument team performs a checkout and
is
satisfied that the new version is fully ready for use. Then the new
version
replaces the old version in the normalization process. Two DSN passes
will
be required to complete this activity for CIRS so the process will be
concluded tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 19 (DOY 170):
The extended mission segmentation working group continued their
efforts
today by working on some of the issues raised at the recent Project
Science
Group meeting. The plan is to have the entire extended mission tour
divided
up into discipline segments by mid August of this year.
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=2EC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.
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