Cassini spacecraft successfully fires engine to raise orbit

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 8/23/04 | AP - Pasadena

[NormsRevenge]

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - The Cassini spacecraft successfully fired its engine for 51 minutes Monday to raise its orbit so it will not pass through Saturn's rings on its next close approach to the planet and to set itself on course for another flyby of the big moon Titan on Oct. 26, NASA said. Confirmation of the successful burn was received at 11:51 a.m. PDT, according to a statement from Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the international mission. The maneuver was designed to raise its altitude during the next close approach to Saturn by 186,000 miles.

Cassini arrived at Saturn on June 30 and passed through a gap between two of the major rings as it entered orbit.

The spacecraft was 5.6 million miles from the center of Saturn on Monday as it neared the highest point of its first and largest orbit of the gas giant.

Monday's engine firing was the last pressurized burn planned for the four-year exploration of the Saturn system.

Such pressurization can carry potential risk: After NASA's $1 billion Mars Observer vanished in 1993 an investigation found that it probably exploded while its fuel lines were being pressurized.

Cassini previously fired the engine for 97 minutes to enter orbit and for 88 minutes during a deep space maneuver in December 1998.

The $3.3 billion dollar mission, funded by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, was launched in 1997. The spacecraft flew 2.2 billion miles on a roundabout route to Saturn.

Cassini carries a probe named Huygens that will be launched in December and plunge into the thick atmosphere of Titan in January, transmitting data as it floats to the surface by parachute.

Cassini made its first flyby of Titan on July 2 at a distance of 211,000 miles. The Oct. 26 flyby will be at a distance of just 746 miles.

[NormsRevenge]

FR Search Results for thread title..

[Flavius]

that stuff is so cool...

[NormsRevenge]

Cassini - MULTIMEDIA - Images - Latest Press Images

Southern Atmosphere Detail

August 9, 2004

Full-Res: PIA05430

Details in Saturn's southern polar region highlight the often turbulent nature of the boundaries that separate the cloud bands on this swirling gaseous globe.

This image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on July 13, 2004, from a distance of 5.1 million kilometers (3.2 million miles). The image was taken through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 889 nanometers. The image scale is 30 kilometers (19 miles) per pixel. Contrast has been enhanced slightly to aid visibility.

[NormsRevenge]

It sure is.. ;-)

Possible variations in chemical composition from one part of Saturn¹s ring system to another are visible in this Voyager 2 image as color variations that can be enhanced with special computer-processing techniques. This highly enhanced color view was assembled from clear, orange, and ultraviolet data frames from a distance of 8.9 million kilometers (5.5 million miles).

For higher resolution, click here.

[Simmy2.5]

Along the lines of the other poster...very cool.

[snopercod]

bump

[RadioAstronomer]

Excellent news. :-)

[XBob]

thanks for the ping. This is the sort of stuff we can do with rockets, and it is very interesting.

But to do much more, to develop space economically (commercially), we need different propulsion system(s).