NASA Extends Cassini's Mission to Saturn
I enjoyed this article about space exploration.
NASA Extends Cassini's Tour of Saturn, Continuing International
Cooperation for World Class Science
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens
mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. The agency's fiscal year
2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study
of the ringed planet.
"This is a mission that never stops providing us surprising scientific
results and showing us eye popping new vistas," said Jim Green, director
of NASA's planetary science division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"The historic traveler's stunning discoveries and images have
revolutionized our knowledge of Saturn and its moons."
Cassini launched in October 1997 with the European Space Agency's Huygens
probe. The spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004. The probe was equipped
with six instruments to study Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Cassini's 12
instruments have returned a daily stream of data from Saturn's system for
nearly six years. The project was scheduled to end in 2008, but the
mission received a 27-month extension to Sept. 2010.
"The extension presents a unique opportunity to follow seasonal changes
of an outer planet system all the way from its winter to its summer,"
said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Some of Cassini's most exciting
discoveries still lie ahead."
This second extension, called the Cassini Solstice Mission, enables
scientists to study seasonal and other long-term weather changes on the
planet and its moons. Cassini arrived just after Saturn's northern winter
solstice, and this extension continues until a few months past northern
summer solstice in May 2017. The northern summer solstice marks the
beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the
southern hemisphere.
A complete seasonal period on Saturn has never been studied at this level
of detail. The Solstice mission schedule calls for an additional 155
orbits around the planet, 54 flybys of Titan and 11 flybys of the icy
moon Enceladus.
The mission extension also will allow scientists to continue observations
of Saturn's rings and the magnetic bubble around the planet known as the
magnetosphere. The spacecraft will make repeated dives between Saturn
and its rings to obtain in depth knowledge of the gas giant. During these
dives, the spacecraft will study the internal structure of Saturn, its
magnetic fluctuations and ring mass.
The mission will be evaluated periodically to ensure the spacecraft has
the ability to achieve new science objectives for the entire extension.
"The spacecraft is doing remarkably well, even as we endure the expected
effects of age after logging 2.6 billion miles on its odometer," said Bob
Mitchell, Cassini program manager at JPL. "This extension is important
because there is so much still to be learned at Saturn. The planet is
full of secrets, and it doesn't give them up easily."
Cassini's travel scrapbook includes more than 210,000 images; information
gathered during more than 125 revolutions around Saturn; 67 flybys of
Titan and eight close flybys of Enceladus. Cassini has revealed
unexpected details in the planet's signature rings, and observations of
Titan have given scientists a glimpse of what Earth might have been like
before life evolved.
Scientists hope to learn answers to many questions that have developed
during the course of the mission, including why Saturn seems to have an
inconsistent rotation rate and how a probable subsurface ocean feeds the
Enceladus' jets.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the
project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The
Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
More Cassini information is available, at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.