Significant Event Report for Week Ending 9/3/1999

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 09/03/99

Spacecraft Status:

The most recent spacecraft status is from the DSN tracking pass on
Thursday, 09/02, over the Goldstone tracking station. The Cassini
spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Where is Cassini Now?" web page (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm)

On Sunday, 08/29, CDA was parked in preparation for TCM-13.

On Monday, 08/30, UVIS, RPWS, MAG and MIMI were placed in "sleep" mode in
preparation for TCM-13. TCM-13 was uplinked to the spacecraft and began
execution.

On Tuesday, 08/31, TCM-13 executed at 9:00 AM PDT and achieved the desired
delta-V of 6.7 m/s with a nominal burn duration of 72 seconds. The
maneuver was performed with the fuel side of the bi-propellant system
pressure regulated. The PMS performed nominally. Also during TCM-13, an
Low Gain Antenna (LGA) 1 to LGA2 antenna swap was performed during the
maneuver in order to obtain high resolution gyro data during the burn. These
data will be used to characterize the AACS controller with the magnetometer
boom deployed.

On Wednesday, 09/01, VIMS began its post TCM decontamination activity.
This activity will run for twenty-four hours.

On Thursday, 09/02, CDA was placed into normal Dust Monitoring
Configuration and the C16 sequence was uplinked to the spacecraft.

Upcoming events for the period of 09/03 - 09/09:

The C15 sequence deregisters on board the spacecraft on 09/04, C16 begins
execution and the off-sun time constraints are set on 09/05, and the HGA
Science Mini-sequence begins execution on 09/06.

Additional information about Cassini-Huygens is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Cassini will begin orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004, and release its piggybacked Huygens probe about six months later for descent through the thick atmosphere of the moon Titan. Cassini-Huygens is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

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