State Of Health: Excellent

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired today from the Goldstone tracking station. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally.

Let's take a look at what Cassini will be doing for science this week. Looks like the Magnetospheric and Plasma Science (MAPS) instruments -- Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), Magnetometer Subsystem (MAG), Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) and Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument -- will be continuing the magnetospheric boundary campaign. They will be looking at boundaries on the dawn flank of the magnetosphere, including the bowshock, magnetopause and associated boundary layers. These instruments will also be monitoring the solar wind when outside the magnetosphere.

The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) will conduct a survey of hydrogen in the interplanetary medium and the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) will monitor dust streams in or coming from Saturn's magnetosphere.

The sequence team leads finished uplinking the S08 background sequence today.

The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) team at JPL began reconstructing meta-data for the earliest Cruise data to support reprocessing to make a better set of cubes for final archiving. A design is now in place for capturing this meta-data and migrating it into the cube labels.

Analysis of the Huygens science data continues. Spectacular images captured by the Descent Imager and Spectral Radiometer (DISR) reveal that Titan has extraordinarily Earth-like meteorology and geology. DISR has revealed geological evidence for precipitation, erosion, mechanical abrasion and other fluvial activity that says that the physical processes shaping Titan are much the same as those shaping Earth.

Heat generated by Huygens at the landing site warmed the soil beneath the probe and both the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) and the Surface Science Package (SSP) detected bursts of methane gas boiled out of surface material, reinforcing methane's principal role in Titan's geology and atmospheric meteorology -- forming clouds and precipitation that erodes and abrades the surface.

The program is bearing down on the end of Science Operations Plan (SOP) Implementation for the tour sequences. There are only 41 sequences in the prime mission. Today the second and final official port was met for S39 and S40. The wrap up meeting for this process will be held on February 9. By that time, the process for S41 will be nearing its end as well.

Now that the world has seen the first images of Saturn's moon Titan, here is a chance for young people to imagine voyages to other planets. EURISY, in cooperation with UNESCO and the Norwegian Center for Space-related Education, is holding a competition for young sci-fi writers. The author of the best story in each age group will win a digital camera and there will also be prizes for whoever comes 2nd and 3rd. From Earth to Planet X is the theme. Using this as their base, budding authors are asked to imagine and write a story describing progress, developments and discoveries related to science and life in outer space.

FMI: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm