Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Cassini: Amazing images and
even more amazing science
Cassini launches
in 1997 to start
a seven-year
journey to the
ringed planet.
Credit: NASA
By Lloyd Campbell
The Cassini orbiter has been in
orbit around Saturn since June 2004.
Launched aboard a Titan IVB rocket
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
on October 15, 1997, it was originally
dubbed Cassini-Huygens as the Huygens
probe was carried along with Cassini to
the Saturnian system.
The voyage to Saturn is a long one as
Saturn, on average, is 1.43 billion miles
from earth. The rocket used to launch
Cassini-Huygens was the most powerful
in the NASA arsenal at that time, but
it was still not powerful enough to
straight to Saturn. Instead NASA utilized
a technique called
“gravity assist” a
number of times
during Cassini’s trip
to Saturn. A gravity
assist
uses
the
gravitational
pull
of a body in space
to increase the
vehicle’s speed as
can also be used to
alter the course of
the spacecraft.
On its trip to
twice, Earth once, and Jupiter once. To
this day Cassini still uses Gravity Assists to
preserve fuel, using the Saturnian moons
and Saturn itself to help maintain the
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speed of the spacecraft. For example,
April 7, 2014, the probe gained speed
as it approached Titan, and due to the
away from Titan its speed post encounter
was the same as before
the encounter started,
using no propellant.
The Cassini orbiter has
12 instruments on board.
According to NASA, “the
science instruments can
that can be compared
to the way human senses
operate. Your eyes and
ears are ‘remote sensing’
devices because you can
receive information from
remote objects without
being in direct contact
with them. Your senses of
touch and taste are ‘direct
sensing’ devices. Your nose Cassini is lowered to mate with
can be construed as either its launch vehicle adapter in 2004.
Credit: NASA
a remote or direct sensing
device. You can certainly smell the apple
pie across the room without having your
nose in direct contact with it, but the
molecules carrying the scent do have to
make direct contact with your sinuses.”
Cassini’s instruments allow it to analyze
remotely, it is an orbiter after all, but it is
not limited to only visual examinations as
it uses radar, radio, and spectrometers
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