Creative Solutions to Cassini's Testing Challenges

Abstract

*The Cassini-Huygens Program is a joint effort between European Space Agency (ESA), which delivered the Huygens probe, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which delivered the Cassini spacecraft. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Cassini spacecraft for NASA. Cassini’s primary mission is to survey the complex Saturnian system and release the ESA-Huygens probe at Titan. The Cassini Integrated Test Lab (ITL) at JPL is a high-fidelity hardware in the loop simulation. It uses Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem (AACS) and Command and Data Subsystem (CDS) flight hardware, as well as high-fidelity simulations of the other spacecraft subsystems and signals. Used for a variety of purposes, including training the flight crew, the ITL's main objective is to validate and verify sequences, Flight Software, and mission critical events. With flight AACS hardware and software, crafty solutions to vector propagation and time jumping were necessary. During Cassini's seven-year cruise, innovative solutions were also found to standardize fault testing of critical sequences. This paper will highlight those solutions.