| SATURN DAILY | SPACE DAILY | TERRA DAILY | MARS DAILY | MOON DAILY | SPACE TRAVEL | SPACE WAR | ENERGY DAILY |
 |
Pasadena - Mar 12, 2003 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, March 5. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page. Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) Flight Software (FSW) checkout continued this week with the following activities uplinked and executed: calibration of inertial reference unit-A, a 7COAST demonstration with rates, star ID suspend demo with rates, checkout of sun sensor assembly-B, several high water mark clears, and fault protection log pointer resets. Playback data from off-track activities has been received. Everything looks normal, and detailed analysis continues. An inertial reference unit-B checkout and calibration activity was also uplinked for execution next week. The project held a final uplink approval meeting for the Command and Data Subsystem (CDS) flight software checkout activities. Procedures and files for the checkout were approved, with uplink and checkout activities to begin on March 24. Preliminary port three for Science Operations Plan implementation of tour sequences S15/S16 occurred this week. The third and final input port occurs next week. Additionally, all teams have been reviewing the first official merged sequence for S17/S18. The Science Planning Team process for C37 concluded this week with the delivery of the port two products and the handoff package to the Sequence team. Subsequence generation for C37 began with a kick-off meeting held on Tuesday. The March Instrument Operations working group meeting featured a SEQ_CONVERT tool tutorial by the Mission Sequence Subsystem development team. System Engineering has created a web page to assist with tour Verification and Validation activities. The site will contain links to various matrices, templates, and documentation in support of V&V. Also posted will be materials presented at last week's Cassini Design Team meeting including a detailed uplink system V&V schedule, and the uplink V&V kickoff agenda. Delivery coordination meetings (DCM) were held for Version 9 of the Mission Sequence Subsystem, and the Instrument Operations Science Operations and Planning Computer (SOPC) Broadcast Keep-Alive scripts. A number of the keep-alive utilities have been updated due to changes in the Deep Space Mission Services firewall. The Jupiter Magnetosphere Synchrotron Radiation experiment was noted in the February 2003 "APS News," a publication of the American Physics Society, as a significant Astrophysics event of 2002. Even though the Cassini RADAR is not mentioned by name, it was the radiometer instrument that collected the raw data for the experiment. Related Links Saturn at JPL Educators at Saturn Observation Campaign SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express
Titan's Methane Clouds Make For A View To Behold 
Mauna Kea - Dec 19, 2002Teams of astronomers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered methane clouds near the south pole of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, resolving a fierce debate about whether clouds exist amid the haze of the moon's atmosphere. |
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
