Skirting Saturn's Rings and Skimming its Cloud Tops: Planning Cassini's End of Mission

Manor-Chapman, Emily; Magee, K. P.; Brooks, S. M.; Edgington, S. G.; Heventhal, William; Sturm, Erick J.

doi:10.2514/6.2014-1907

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 5 publications

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“…These orbits will bring Cassini closer to Saturn than ever before, yielding unique science observation opportunities [1] [9]. While the exact science observations during this time are still being planned, a healthy hydrazine allocation is included in the PUP.…”

Section: F-ring and Proximal Orbits-the F-ring And Proximalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensuring Cassini's end-of-mission propellant margins

Sturm

Barber

Roth

2015

2015 IEEE Aerospace Conference

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The Cassini spacecraft is in its final years. On September 15, 2017, Cassini will plunge deep into Saturn's atmosphere never to reemerge; thus concluding its second extended mission and 13 years in orbit around the ringed planet. As of October 2014, the spacecraft is four years in to its sevenyear, second extended mission, the Cassini Solstice Mission (CSM). With three years left and only 2.5% of its loaded bipropellant and 37% of its loaded monopropellant remaining, the Cassini project actively manages the predicted end-ofmission propellant margins to maintain a high confidence in the spacecraft's ability to complete the CSM as designed.Accurate spacecraft navigation, rigorous remaining-propellant estimation, and frequent future propellant consumption prediction have resulted in efficient propellant use and a probability of sufficient propellant margin greater than 99%.

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Section: F-ring and Proximal Orbits-the F-ring And Proximalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensuring Cassini's end-of-mission propellant margins

Sturm

Barber

Roth

2015

2015 IEEE Aerospace Conference

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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The Cassini Solstice Mission: Streamlining Operations by Sequencing with PIEs

Vandermey

Alonge

Magee

et al. 2014

SpaceOps 2014 Conference

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The Cassini Solstice Mission (CSM) is the second extended mission phase of the highly successful Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Conducted at a much-reduced funding level, operations for the CSM have been streamlined and simplified significantly. Integration of the science timeline, which involves allocating observation time in a balanced manner to each of the five different science disciplines (with representatives from the twelve different science instruments), has long been a labor-intensive endeavor. Lessons learned from the prime mission (2004-2008) and first extended mission (Equinox mission, 2008-2010) were utilized to design a new process involving PIEs (Pre-Integrated Events) to ensure the highest priority observations for each discipline could be accomplished despite reduced work force and overall simplification of processes. Discipline-level PIE lists were managed by the Science Planning team and graphically mapped to aid timeline deconfliction meetings prior to assigning discrete segments of time to the various disciplines. Periapse segments are generally discipline-focused, with the exception of a handful of PIEs. In addition to all PIEs being documented in a spreadsheet, allocated out-of-discipline PIEs were entered into the Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) well in advance of timeline integration. The disciplines were then free to work the rest of the timeline internally, without the need for frequent interaction, debate, and negotiation with representatives from other disciplines. As a result, the number of integration meetings has been cut back extensively, freeing up workforce. The sequence implementation process was streamlined as well, combining two previous processes (and teams) into one. The new Sequence Implementation Process (SIP) schedules 22 weeks to build each 10-week-long sequence, and only 3 sequence processes overlap. This differs significantly from prime mission during which 5-week-long sequences were built in 24 weeks, with 6 overlapping processes.

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Skirting Saturn's Rings and Skimming its Cloud Tops: Planning Cassini's End of Mission

Cited by 2 publications

References 5 publications

Ensuring Cassini's end-of-mission propellant margins

Ensuring Cassini's end-of-mission propellant margins

The Cassini Solstice Mission: Streamlining Operations by Sequencing with PIEs

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