Cassini Update - November 4, 2005

Cassini Significant Events
for 10/27/05 - 11/01/05

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Tuesday, November 1,
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 .

October 27 (DOY 300) - November 2 (DOY 306)

Thursday, October 27 (DOY 300):
System Engineering hosted a meeting to develop the process for
identification and notification for events that justify a Project
request
for elevated support by the Deep Space Network. Members of Mission
Planning
and Uplink Operations were identified as the responsible teams to track
events as a sequence goes through the various development processes.
The Cassini Imaging Team is delighted to announce that a paper
describing
the dynamics underlying the sculpting effects of the moon Prometheus on
Saturn's narrow F ring will be published in the journal Nature on
October 27, 2005.

From October 27 through 29, members of the Cassini Outreach Team
presented 'Reading, Writing, and Rings' at the annual California
Science
Teachers' Association meeting in Palm Springs, California. Three
workshops were held during the conference with a total of 175 educators
attending.

Friday, October 28 (DOY 301):

A kickoff meeting was held today for the DOY 307-316 Live Inertial
Vector Propagator (IVP) Update process. The orbit determination (OD)
solution for the update is scheduled for release at 1800 PST, Sunday,
October 30. Due to the tight turnaround between OD release and uplink
of
the IVP update, Science Planning and the Instrument teams need to
perform their analysis Sunday night in order to provide their
recommendation Monday morning at the Go/No-Go Meeting.

The Titan 8 targeted flyby occurred today. Closest approach was 1,353
kilometers above the surface. The RADAR instrument performed synthetic
aperture radar imaging of the dark terrain west of Xanadu, including
long awaited observations of the Huygens landing site. In addition, the
Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer obtained data regarding atmospheric
and ionospheric composition and thermal structure, the Radio and Plasma
Wave Science subsystem searched for lightning and other radio
emissions,
performed a characterization of the plasma wave spectrum, and searched
for evidence of pickup ions in the vicinity of Titan, CIRS obtained
data
regarding the vertical temperature profile in Titan's stratosphere,
tropopause, and on the surface, and the Imaging Science Subsystem
monitored Titan for surface and atmospheric changes, including cloud
motion.

During the flyby the Magnetospheric and Plasma Science teams continued
observations of Titan's interactions with Saturn's magnetosphere -
including the period within one hour of closest approach. All data from
this flyby have been returned to the ground and are now being analyzed
by the instrument teams.

Saturday, October 29 (DOY 302):

Non Targeted Flybys of Methone And Calypso occurred today.

Over 200 members of the public showed up at Library Park, Myrtle and
Lime Streets, Monrovia, CA late on a Saturday night to view Mars at its
closest approach to Earth on October 29th. Members of Cassini outreach,
the Saturn Observation Campaign and the JPL Astronomy Club set up five
telescopes for the public to use. Wows lasted until well after
midnight.

Monday, October 31 (DOY 304):

The S20 Aftermarket assessment meeting was held today.

Orbit trim maneuver #41 (OTM-41) was successfully completed today. This
T8 +3 day maneuver had two purposes: to clean up after the Titan-8
flyby
on October 28, and to set up targeting for the 500 km flyby of Rhea on
November 26. The main engine burn began at 7:14 am PDT. Telemetry
immediately after the maneuver showed the burn duration was 77.6
seconds, giving a delta-V of approximately 12.4 m/s. The "burn settling
time" was increased from 2 minutes to 38 minutes for this maneuver as
part of an AACS investigation into post-maneuver Reaction Wheel
Assembly
torque roughness. As a result, the "off-Earth time" was 55 min. All
subsystems reported nominal performance after the OTM.

The planned S15 DOY 307-316 Live IVP Update was cancelled today on the
recommendation of Science Planning (SP) and the Instrument Teams. The
update was determined not to be necessary to obtain the desired
science.

Tuesday, November 1 (DOY 305):

Cassini Outreach participated in an educator workshop at Vannoy
Elementary School in Castro Valley, CA

The S16 DOY 316 Live IVP update process kickoff meeting was held today.
The purpose was to update the Iapetus pointing vector needed for DOY
316-324. This was to be a continuation of the S15 DOY 307-316 Live IVP
Update that was cancelled yesterday. Since the pointing is similar in
S16 it is also not too surprising that the team is recommending
cancellation for this update as well. Not all teams have had a chance
to
review the materials so status of this update will be announced in a
day
or so. UPDATE: SP, CIRS, RADAR, ISS and the Visual and Infrared Mapping
Spectrometer (VIMS) teams have reported that the update is not needed
so
it has been cancelled. This update was only to go through DOY 324.
There
is another possible update scheduled for later in S16 for Rhea but so
far that one looks unnecessary as well.

The final sequence development process for S18 kicked off today. The
sequence leads have distributed the stripped subsequence files to SP,
Spacecraft Operations Office, and the instrument teams. The merged
activity plan sequence products have also been generated and posted for
review.

Wrap up:

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Tuesday, November 1,
from the Goldstone tracking complex. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent state of health and all subsystems are operating normally.
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.