Significant Event Report for Week Ending 5/5/2000

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 05/05/00

The most recent spacecraft telemetry data was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, 5/03. 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.

Activities this week included the uplink, execution, and data playback for
the CIRS cooler cover release. The mini-sequence ran perfectly with
telemetry indicating a successful cover release. A second mini-sequence
was then uplinked for instrument cooldown and science data acquisition.
Both instrument and spacecraft teams report nominal states.

Other activities include clearing of the high water marks and uplink of
new TLM tables for two new telemetry modes (RTE&SPB_22.12 and
RTE&SPB_82.95) to support C20 activities. Both TLM mode transitions went
off smoothly and onboard checkout was successful. The final sequence
approval meeting was held for the C20 background sequence. C20 was
uplinked and is both registered and active in the CDS sequencing machine.
The sequence will begin execution on Friday May 5. The preliminary
Sequence Change Request approval meeting for C21 was held on Monday, May 1.

The AACS subsystem test bed has been certified and relocation of equipment
to building 230 has begun.

Outreach made presentations to 150 5th graders at Paradise Canyon School
and to 85 8th graders at their outdoor school week at Camp Arbolado in the
San Bernardino Mountains. Outreach staff also assisted in judging the L.
A. County Science Fair.

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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