The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, September 5. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the spacecraft's position and speed can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/.

Recent spacecraft activities include two Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver calibrations, a Probe S-Band antenna pattern calibration, a Command & Data Subsystem Solid State Recorder memory load partition repair, and an Imaging Science Subsystem 77/78 Taurus observation. Real-time commands were uplinked to the spacecraft as planned to turn off the Ka-Band Exciter and Ka-Band Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier, transition from the Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) to the Reaction Control Subsystem for attitude control, and power off the RWA.

The first system mode test of the Probe Relay critical sequence was successfully completed. This represents a major milestone in the Probe Relay sequence development process. In addition, the Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) sequence successfully passed a bus fault system mode test where the remote terminal simulator was used to simulate a bus fault.

The C28 Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation meeting was held, with the C28 sequence approved for uplink. The C28 sequence was radiated and registered on board the spacecraft late this week, and will activate over the coming weekend.

The Mission Planning team delivered the kickoff package for C30 to science planning, which will begin the C30 Science Planning Team process early next week.

The Radio Science (RS) Ops Team supported the Cassini Deep Space Station (DSS)-25 Upgrade Task and the Network Monitor and Control (NMC) 1.3 Task in demonstrating the use of NMC 1.3 during a live Cassini track over DSS-25. Simultaneous Ka-band and X-band uplinks were controlled and monopulse monitor data was streamed to the RS Ops Team in their Mission Support Area.

A software Delivery Coordination Meeting was held to review the Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) 1.4 software delivery. The primary new functionality is the ability to produce a time-ordered-listing of user data and either view it or save it to a file.

The Mission Assurance website and Risk Management Tool have been rolled out into operations. User accounts have been established and risk owners have been tasked with reviewing and giving a status of their assigned risks.

The Development Management Office finalized the commitment of capabilities to be developed for SOI and Probe Relay phases.

Cassini 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, Calif., manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration