Significant Event Report for Week Ending 10/31/2003

Cassini Significant Event Report

For Week Ending 10/31/03

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Tuesday, October 28. 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.

On-board activities this week included a Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) high frequency receiver calibration and uplink of the Imaging Science Subsystem Narrow Angle Camera / Wide Angle Camera SSR instrument expanded blocks.

An exercise of the Cassini emergency control center (ECC) at the DSN complex at Goldstone, California was conducted this week. These exercises are held periodically in order to verify the ECC's ability to support emergency operations.

A science allocation panel meeting and a Sub Sequence Generation Sequence Change Request Approval meeting were held this week as part of development of the C42 background sequence. The waiver disposition meeting was cancelled, as there were no new waivers submitted.

Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer personnel completed analysis of data returned from last week's in-flight test of flight software version 7.1. The test was entirely successful.

RPWS detected Tuesday's X17 solar flare being reported in the news as the 'flare of the century'. Radio emissions were detected using the amplitude-frequency information from the high frequency receiver.

Kickoff meetings were held this week for the C44 science planning team process and the S19/S20 science operations plan (SOP) implementation process. In addition, a package from the wrap-up meeting for S01/SO2 SOP implementation has been released.

A delivery coordination meeting was held for Command Data Base version D10A. This version supports Mission Sequence Subsystem version D10.1 and implements changes to three commands needed by the Composite InfraRed Spectrometer team for their flight software checkout.

Sunday marked the last day of transition from use of the old hard copy command request form to use of the new electronic command request form process.

Cassini Outreach participated in an after-school student presentation for 150 elementary school children in San Diego, California, and gave presentations at an air show at Dryden / Edwards Air Force Base in California. The show averaged 150,000 attendees each day.

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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