* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: The Cassini spacecraft

Blobrana · L

The Cassini spacecraft is to makes a close pass by Saturn's inner moon Enceladus on the 3rd October, to study plumes from geysers that erupt from giant fissures in the moon's southern polar region.

Blobrana · L

Shortly after 9:03 p.m. Pacific Time, the Cassini spacecraft began sending data to Earth following a close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus. During closest approach, Cassini successfully passed only 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the surface of the tiny moon.
Cassini's signal was picked up by the Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia, and relayed to the Cassini mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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Blobrana · L

Fractures, or "tiger stripes," where icy jets erupt on Saturn's moon Enceladus will be the target of a close flyby by the Cassini spacecraft on Monday, Aug. 11.
Cassini will zoom past the tiny moon a mere 50 kilometres from the surface. Just after closest approach, all of the spacecraft's cameras -- covering infrared wavelengths, where temperatures are mapped, as well as visible light and ultraviolet -- will focus on the fissures running along the moon's south pole. That is where the jets of icy water vapour emanate and erupt hundreds of miles into space. Those jets have fascinated scientists since their discovery in 2005.

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Blobrana · L

On June 30, Cassini completes its four-year prime mission and begins its extended mission, which was approved in April of this year.
Among other things, Cassini revealed the Earth-like world of Saturn's moon Titan and showed the potential habitability of another moon, Enceladus. These two worlds are primary targets in the two-year extended mission, dubbed the Cassini Equinox Mission.

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Blobrana · L

University of Iowa scientists are pleased with the news that NASA is extending its Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons.
UI has on board an instrument with three antennas testing for radio emissions, radio waves and plasma waves.

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Blobrana · L

After travelling about 3.5 billion miles in nearly seven years, a little less than 13,000 pounds of complex technology from home is nearly finished with its original mission to explore Saturn and its moons

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Blobrana · L

NASA is to extend the Cassini spaceprobes's mission, by two years.
The probes's mission was scheduled to end in July, 2008.

Blobrana · L

Want a peek at Saturn as seen from space? A new interactive 3-D viewer that uses a game engine and allows users to travel to Saturn and see it the way the Cassini spacecraft sees it is now online

The first time you click on the button below it will automatically download and install the needed software (a free plug-in to your web-browser) and the real Cassini mission data. The download is about 15 megabytes so it should only take a minute or two. (If you use a Mac you may need to install the software after it downloads and then restart your web-browser.) Once the plug-in is installed and the mission data is loaded you're ready for your trip to the Saturn System.

Weblink

Blobrana · L

On 15 October 1997, one of the most exciting Solar System exploration projects began: from Cape Canaveral, a Titan 4B launch vehicle carrying a payload the size of a bus, almost seven metres high and weighing over five and a half tonnes, took off and disappeared into the night sky over Florida. A little later, a Centaur upper stage boosted the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft into its trajectory towards Saturn, the second largest planet in our Solar System and a miniature solar system in its own right, with its striking rings and numerous icy moons. The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) is involved in many technical and scientific aspects of the Cassini-Huygens mission.

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