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Posted by baalke on October 26, 2007, 6:09 pm
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Cassini Significant Events
for 10/17/07 - 10/23/07
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on Tuesday, Oct. 23,
from the Madrid 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" page at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.
Wednesday, Oct. 17 (DOY 290):
Throughout this week, Uplink Operations will be sending commands to
the
spacecraft to perform a DOY-291 real-time reaction wheel bias, a
memory
read out (MRO) and scrub of the sub-module flags, and an MRO of the
CDS
for Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) bus interface unit data. In
addition the S34 Hyperion mini-sequence, S34B background sequence,
Radio
Science (RSS) Saturn Occultation Live Movable Block for DOY-297, and a
RADAR trigger command will be uplinked.
Thursday, Oct. 18 (DOY 291):
The Hyperion mini-sequence began execution today. Science instruments
performed observations to determine the color and rotation of the
satellite. Later this week, the cameras will take measurements in
support of a satellite orbit determination campaign.
Friday, Oct. 19 (DOY 292):
A non-targeted flyby of Hyperion occurred today.
The Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument team began a 14-hour long
decontamination of the instrument's detector today. Decontaminations
occur at regular intervals and are part of normal CDA instrument
maintenance.
Monday, Oct. 22 (DOY 295)
A non-targeted flyby of Titan occurred today. For this event, the
Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) took full disk stereo images and
worked
to fill gaps in previous data sets, while the Visual and Infrared
Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) performed global mapping. CIRS obtained
measurements of nitriles, hydrocarbons, and CO2 as a function of
latitude and emission angle at the equator on Titan. Titan's gas
composition exhibits significant variation with latitude and season.
Long integrations will permit a sensitive search for new molecules.
CIRS
also continued to develop temperature maps of Titan to obtain
information on the thermal structure of Titan's stratosphere.
S34B, the fourth and final part of the S34 background / CDS flight
software uplink and checkout / Hyperion mini-sequence began execution
today.
Tuesday, Oct. 23 (DOY 296)
Non-targeted flybys of several of the smaller satellites occurred
today.
Non-targeted flybys are ones that occur without active navigation and
"just happen" to be in a place that can be observed by the instruments
on board Cassini. Typically the altitudes are high, anywhere from
several thousand to a million km, and may vary as the reference
trajectory changes.
Additional science opportunities this week as a result of the numerous
non-targeted flybys included spectrophotometry and phase coverage of
Tethys, Enceladus, and Mimas, Enceladus and Mimas global color
mapping,
and CDA observations at the outer ring, Rhea, Dione, and at the
Enceladus orbit crossing.
The Cassini Radio Science Orbit 51 atmospheric occultation was
completed
today. The experiment included ingress and egress atmospheric
occultation observations of the ionosphere and neutral atmosphere of
Saturn, and was the only Cassini Saturn occultation to probe nearly
equal mid-Southern latitudes on both the ingress and egress sides,
providing unique characterization of the atmosphere at similar
latitudes
but at widely separated longitudes. The atmospheric occultation went
very well. The experiment was completed as planned and high quality
data
were collected at all three observation frequencies of S, X, and Ka
bands.
CIRS complemented the RSS occultation observations with Saturn
occultation point mosaics. These CIRS spectra in the vicinity of RSS
occultation points are used in combination with the RSS measurements
to
obtain a new determination of helium abundance. In the absence of a
probe into Saturn, we rely on remote sensing techniques for the
determination of the helium abundance, and refinement of such
determinations is a high scientific priority. By repeating the
observations at a number of occultation points under a variety of
atmospheric conditions, an improved value with reduced error bars can
be
obtained.
The newest Cassini "Scientist for a Day" program was announced Oct.
23.
Students in grades 5-12 are invited to choose from four possible
targets
for the cameras on board Cassini on Nov. 30, 2007. The program asks
students to decide which target's image would provide the greatest
scientific value. Submission deadline is November 15. For more
information about the Cassini Scientist-for-a-Day contest and entry
rules, please visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/education/scientist/
Additional information can be found at:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=787
and
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/2007.html
A beautiful full ring image was selected as Astronomy Picture of the
Day
today.
Wrap up:
Check out the Cassini web site at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for
the lat est 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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