Cassini Update - February 10, 2006

Cassini Significant Events
for 02/02/06 - 02/08/06

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Wednesday, February
8,
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/operation...t-position.cfm .

Thursday, February 2 (DOY 033):

Orbit trim maneuver (OTM) # 51 was successfully performed today. This
is
the apoapsis maneuver setting up for the Titan 11 encounter on February
27.
The Reaction Control Subsystem burn began at 01:00 AM Pacific Time.
Telemetry obtained immediately after the maneuver showed the burn
duration
was 203.25 seconds, giving a delta-V of 0.186 m/s. All subsystems
reported
nominal performance after the OTM.

Friday, February 3 (DOY 034):

This evening, a cold blustery night in Maine, a Brunswick, ME, Saturn
Observation Campaign member hosted a backyard Saturn viewing for
Longfellow
Elementary School's third grade class. Ooh's and Aah's were followed
by hot
cocoa and images from Cassini. At the same time, in Corsicana, TX, the
Navarro College Planetarium presented a Ring World Star party, and in
Ahmedabad, India, a Saturn observation and bird count was conducted.
Rain
dampened the skies but not the enthusiasm of Saturn Observation
Campaign
members in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Michigan, Lima, Peru, and
Mexico
City. They plan to try again later this month.

Saturday, February 4 (DOY 035):

The San Antonio, Texas, Astronomical Association presented Saturn Night
Live
this evening. Other Saturn Observation campaign events were held in
Southern California, Mexico City, and at the Virginia Living Museum in
Newport News, Virginia.

Sunday, February 5 (DOY 036):

On Sunday, at apoapsis, Cassini began orbit #21 and reached a distance
of
4.1 million km from Saturn. This is the farthest the spacecraft has
been
from the planet since November of 2004. The Radio and Plasma Wave
Science
(RPWS) instrument took advantage of this distance to perform an antenna
calibration. The activity enabled them to measure the electrical
orientation
of their antennas to determine whether these have changed since the
release
of the Huygens Probe.

Monday, February 6 (DOY 037):

The satellites Pan, Atlas, Helene, Calypso, Janus, Epimetheus, Pallene,
Polydeuces, Telesto, Methone, Pandora, and Prometheus were each
observed
multiple times this week for the purpose of improving the determination
of
their orbits. Also captured this week was a transit of Rhea across
Tethys.
In addition, the Imaging Science Subsystem and Visible and Infrared
Mapping
Spectrometer spent fifty hours searching for lightning over Saturn's
northern hemisphere.

Tuesday, February 7 (DOY 038):

Reference Trajectory update status and plans were discussed today at
the
Mission Planning Forum. Of the four trajectory options under review,
two
were identified as the most attractive to the science teams. A follow
up
meeting has been scheduled for next week to discuss final science
inputs.
The decision on which option to adopt will be made on Wednesday,
February
22.

A DOY 054-058 live Inertial Vector Propagator (IVP) update kick-off
meeting
was held today. Analysis of the pointing assessment indicated that an
update was not necessary. All participating teams agreed and the
update has
been cancelled.

Wednesday, February 8 (DOY 039):

An Encounter Strategy Meeting for the Titan 11 and 12 flybys was held
today.
The time period involved is February 27 through March 18, and includes
OTMs
53 through 55. Topics included special mission activities, a sequence
overview, live IVP updates, consumables, sequence contingency planning,
Navigation schedule, maneuver design, predicted orbit determination
accuracy, maneuver cancellation, DSN coverage, infrastructure and
subsystem
status, and special issues if any.

The Project Briefing for S20 was held today. The Science Operations
Plan
update product is in the process of being handed off to the sequence
leads
for the start of the final sequence generation process that begins on
February 13.

A close-up image of Tethys' battle scars is Astronomy Picture of the
Day
today.

A delivery coordination meeting was held today for RAMPAGE version
2.4.1, an
upgraded Web-based telemetry viewer and red alarm display application,
and
for version 3.1 of the Cassini Archive Tracking System (CATS). CATS is
a
web application tool that tracks required archive submissions into the
Planetary Data System (PDS). It allows the project and the PDS to
accurately and efficiently report on archive submission status, and
facilitates communication between teams, projects, and the PDS.

Saturn Observation Campaign events will be held February 9 in Perris,
California, on February 10-12 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and on
February 11
in San Juan Talpa, El Salvador, and in Cumbria, England.

Enjoy a trio of celestial objects this weekend. Saturn and the beehive
cluster of stars will be above, then next to, and then below the moon
on
February 10-12.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/scitech/....cfm?ST_ID=990

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.C. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.