TAG | Successful Cassini mission extended two years around Saturn |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Thursday, 17 April 2008 | |
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Originally scheduled to end July 2008, the new extension for the Cassini mission will add sixty more orbits around Saturn and an extensive number of flybys of its many moons. In fact, the NASA announcement states that the flybys will include “26 flybys of Titan, seven of Enceladus, and one each of Dione, Rhea and Helene.” Jim Green, who is the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters, states, "New discoveries are the hallmarks of its success, along with the breathtaking images beamed back to Earth that are simply mesmerizing." Green adds, “This extension is not only exciting for the science community, but for the world to continue to share in unlocking Saturn's secrets.” Although some minor problems are occurring with Cassini, the basic functioning of the spacecraft is fine. In fact, Bob Mitchell, who is the Cassini program manager at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, stated, "The spacecraft is performing exceptionally well and the team is highly motivated, so we're excited at the prospect of another two years.” Some of the major discoveries made by scientists based on data from the Cassini spacecraft are: (1) the possible presence of liquid water beneath the surface of the moon Enceladus; (2) active geysers of water-ice on Enceladus; and (3) the presence of methane- and ethane-based lakes, rivers, rain, snow, and clouds, along with mountains, and maybe even volcanoes on the moon Titan. The Cassini-Huygens robotic spacecraft mission—directed by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency—launched from NASA’s spaceport in Florida on October 15, 1997. Its seven-year trip to Saturn involved about 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kilometers), finally reaching orbit about the planet on July 1, 2004. On December 25, 2004 the Huygens probe exited the Cassini spacecraft for a descent through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005. The plutonium-powered Cassini spacecraft is the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn and the fourth to explore it. The spacecraft is able to make so many discoveries because of its full compliment of instruments onboard. Some of them include a visible/infrared mapping spectrometer, radar mapper, CCD imaging system, composite infrared spectrometer, cosmic dust analyzer, radio and plasma wave experiment, plasma spectrometer, ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, magnetospheric imaging instrument, magnetometer, and ion/neutral mass spectrometer. The extended mission, which will cost approximately US$160 million, is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The first four years of exploration cost an estimated $3.3 billion. The second round mission of Cassini will expand on past discoveries and introduce new explorations of the Saturnian system. For additional information on the Cassini mission, please read the iTWire article “Cassini shows photographer’s eye with fantastic Saturn images.” This article is based on the NASA News Release, April 15, 2008, entitled “NASA Extends Cassini's Grand Tour of Saturn.” Latest images of the Saturnian system by Cassini is found at NASA “Multimedia—Images—Latest Press Images.”
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