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Posted by baalke on October 11, 2007, 6:17 pm
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-118
Cassini Mission to Saturn Celebrates 10 Years Since Launch
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
October 11, 2007
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its launch from Cape Canaveral,
the
Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn is once again at the center of
scientific attention. Its latest discoveries about the ringed planet
are
a leading topic of conversation among the nearly 1,500 scientists
gathered this week at a major astronomy conference in Orlando, Fla.
Cassini rode into space Oct. 15, 1997, atop a U.S. Air Force Titan
IVB.
Its mission: to orbit and study the Saturnian system for four years
and
to put the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe in position to
parachute down to the frozen surface of Saturn's Earthlike moon Titan.
Since entering orbit around Saturn, Cassini's scientific instruments,
powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators, have returned
immense
amounts of new information via NASA's global Deep Space Network to the
international team of scientists working on the mission.
Scientists aren't the only ones to benefit from Cassini's voyage of
discovery. Since arriving at Saturn three-and-a-half years ago,
Cassini's revelations have captured the public imagination. Its
spectacular views of Saturn and its realm have graced the covers of
magazines around the world. Millions have followed the mission's
progress at NASA's web sites http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
"With Cassini, amazing discoveries have almost become routine," says
Cassini project scientist Dennis Matson of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., where the international mission is
managed.
"Orbiting Saturn, Cassini is in the middle of the greatest natural
laboratory accessible to us in space," says Matson. "With its rings,
dozens of moons and magnetic environment, Saturn is like a mini-solar
system, with Saturn as a stand-in for the sun, and the moons and rings
like planets in formation. Through Cassini and its instruments, we are
making fundamental strides in understanding the physical processes
that
created and govern this and other solar systems."
Some of the discoveries include ice geysers shooting from Saturn's
moon
Enceladus and the finding that one of Saturn's rings is created from
these ice particles. Recently, scientists found that material from
Enceladus is also affecting the rotation of Saturn's magnetic field.
And
an onboard radar instrument, which sees through clouds, has been
unveiling the fascinating world of Titan, the large moon with complex
chemistry and lakes of hydrocarbons.
More information about the Cassini mission is available at
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled
at
JPL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media contact: Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Carolina.martinez@jpl.nasa.gov
2007-118
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Posted by Andre Lieven on October 11, 2007, 7:21 pm
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On Oct 11, 6:17 pm, baa...@earthlink.net wrote:
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-118
>
> Cassini Mission to Saturn Celebrates 10 Years Since Launch
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory
> October 11, 2007
>
> Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its launch from Cape Canaveral,
> the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn is once again at the center
> of scientific attention.
Its kind of funky to consider that Cassini has now been in flight for
pretty much 20% of the whole Space Age...
Andre
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Posted by Neil Gerace on October 12, 2007, 8:20 am
Please log in for more thread options > On Oct 11, 6:17 pm, baa...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> >http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-118
>
> > Cassini Mission to Saturn Celebrates 10 Years Since Launch
> > Jet Propulsion Laboratory
> > October 11, 2007
>
> > Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its launch from Cape Canaveral,
> > the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn is once again at the center
> > of scientific attention.
>
> Its kind of funky to consider that Cassini has now been in flight for
> pretty much 20% of the whole Space Age...
>
> Andre
Yes, and IIRC it was the last of the pre-FasterBetterCheaper big
bangers to be launched.
>From what I've read the main spacecraft should have been named Roemer,
to be fair. My source "E=mc2, biography of an equation" by David
Bodanis, says that Ole Roemer determined that c was not only finite
but measurable and set out to measure it, while Cassini wrongly
believed it was infinite. But since France contributes more to the ESA
than Denmark does, the lesser scientist of the two got the eponym.
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