[meteorite-list] Re: Cassini is in orbit around Saturn!

From: moni waiblinger-seabridge <moni2555_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jul 1 04:12:42 2004
Message-ID: <BAY14-F23CNTfkQBEsy00038822_at_hotmail.com>

Hi All,

Yes, CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER!

I have a question about the Cassini-Huygens mission being a cooperative
venture of the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and
the Italian Space Agency; is it being tracked at the Goldstone complex of
NASA's Deep Space Network?

Just wondering, Moni


>From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com
>To: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
>Subject: [meteorite-list] Re: Cassini is in orbit around Saturn!
>Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 02:16:00 EDT
>
>Ron Baalke escribe:
>
> >>Woohoo!
>---------------------------------------------------------
>
>Life is great! It's happened! We're Ringing in the Year of
>Cassini-Huygens,
>Saturn (not the one in your driveway), Titan, and the rest of the Saturnian
>neighborhood ... beautiful sailing, JPL ! So do we get to see a photo from
>the
>closest approach Cassini just made to Saturn that it ever will ???
>saludos
>
>And the BBC says:
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3846195.stm
>
>
>Cassini-Huygens will spend four years studying Saturn and its moons
>
>The international mission to Saturn - Cassini-Huygens - has successfully
>entered into orbit around the planet. The $3.3bn probe fired its main
>engine for
>95 minutes on Thursday to slow it sufficiently to be captured by the
>gravity of
>the sixth planet.
>
>The spacecraft has travelled for more than six years and covered over three
>billion km to get to Saturn.
>
>The joint US-European mission can now start a four-year study of the ringed
>planet and its 31 known moons.
>
>There were cheers and clapping in the mission control at the US space
>agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California when confirmation came
>through that
>Cassini was in its correct orbit.
>
>The spacecraft had been programmed to perform a series of manoeuvres,
>turning
>its high-gain antenna to shield against particles as it ascended through
>the
>rings, turning end-on-end to point its engine forward and fire, then
>spinning
>around once more to put the shielding dish forward again for a descent back
>through the rings.
>
>Tracking data revealed the long burn came to an end just a minute earlier
>than expected.
>
>All the while scientists and engineers on the mission had to follow events
>in
>delay. The huge distance to the ringed planet means signals take more than
>80
>minutes to arrive at Earth.
>
>So there were some nerves in the control room - if the programmed sequence
>had failed, Cassini could have been thrown out of the Solar System by
>Saturn's
>gravity.
>
>"It was kind of a nail-biter throughout but what you saw was the result of
>a
>lot of work by a lot of people and it all paid off just perfect," said Bob
>Mitchell, Cassini programme manager.
>
>"There wasn't a single thing that we might have asked to be done
>differently
>that would have made anything any better."
>
>Jerry Jones, Cassini's chief navigator, reported on the spacecraft's
>flawless
>performance. "Our current orbital period is estimated to be about 116.3
>days," he said.
>
>"We were targeting for 117.4 - so we're right there. We'll probably do a
>clean-up manoeuvre on Saturday but there's some chance we may even call
>that off
>because we're such good shape."
>
>David Southwood, the head of science at the European Space Agency, saluted
>his American colleagues for executing a "brilliant" orbit insertion.
>
>"This is a world mission - certainly the US and Europe working together,"
>he
>said. "But I have to say this was the Americans' evening. Thank you USA,
>thank
>you Nasa."
>
> CASSINI'S KEY PARTS
>
>1. Antennas enabling communication with Earth
>2. Boom carrying instrument to measure magnetic fields
>3. Two cameras will take 300,000 pictures of the planet
>4. Infra-red spectrometer analyses Saturn's temperature and composition
>5. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators supply 750W of power
>6. Cassini has two engines - one is a back-up
>7. Thrusters used for small changes of direction or speed
>8. Huygens probe will land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan
>9. Plasma spectrometer measures charged particles and solar winds
>
>Cassini-Huygens - the main spacecraft carries the Huygens probe intended
>for
>delivery to Saturn's biggest moon, Titan - is the first man-made object to
>orbit around the ringed planet.
>
>Scientists hope the mission will provide important clues about how the
>planets formed.
>
>They want to learn more about what Saturn is made of - its atmosphere,
>whipped by ferocious storms; its molten core; and its mysterious rings,
>thought to
>be the remains of shattered comets, asteroids and moons.
>
>Cassini's instruments measure magnetic fields and radio waves, charged
>particles, cosmic dust, infrared and ultraviolet light. There are also
>wide-angle
>and narrow-angle cameras.
>
>In December, the spacecraft will release Huygens on to Titan, the only moon
>in the Solar System with a thick atmosphere.
>
>Cassini is set to fly past Titan about 36 hours after orbit insertion,
>giving
>scientists a better view of this little-known world before Huygens is
>despatched.
>
>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative venture of the US space agency
>(Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency.
>
>The mission carries the names of the 17th-Century astronomers Jean
>Dominique
>Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.
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Received on Thu 01 Jul 2004 04:12:39 AM PDT