Significant Event Report for Week Ending 5/31/2002

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 05/31/02

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Monday, May 27. 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.

Activities on board the spacecraft included an autonomous CDS Solid State Recorder memory load partition repair, a Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) functional test, and CIRS mute test. The mute test was to verify that recent RAM patches would enable CIRS to successfully un-mute after muting for the next probe checkout.

The preliminary sequence integrated products for C33 have been released for review.

A Delivery Coordination Meeting was held for Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) version 2.2. This incremental upgrade to CIMS includes over 14 deliverable items including conversion of epochs to Seq_Gen compatible name, observation, downlink and support image activity types, and multiple enhancements to the build/delivery capability as requested by Science Planning. The software was successfully installed on all designated workstations.

Cassini personnel were recognized this week in the 2002 Awards for Excellence. The award recognizes individuals and teams who make exceptional contributions to the Laboratory's standard of excellence for a specific accomplishment or sustained contribution. Four individuals were recognized, and team awards were given for the Cassini Jupiter Encounter, Huygens Recovery Task Force, and the Cassini Attitude & Articulation Control Subsystem. Details on the awards can be found at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Outreach announced that the Saturn Observation Campaign would be going online at end of week. The campaign's objective is to create opportunities for professional and amateur astronomers to engage the public in the excitement of the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn. This website will act as the hub of the observation campaign. A wealth of information on activities, resources, and contacts will be posted to this site on a regular basis. The site will also provide astro-photographers of all ages and levels of expertise a venue to showcase their images of the ringed world. The site will be available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

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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