Cassini To Saturn
Explanation:
Scheduled for launch in October,
the Cassini spacecraft
will spend
seven years traveling through the Solar System --
its destination, Saturn.
On arrival
Cassini will begin an
ambitious mission of exploration which
will include
parachuting a probe to the
surface of Titan,
Saturn's largest moon.
This
artist's vision offers a dramatic view of Cassini's engine firing
during the SOI (Saturn Orbit Insertion) maneuver
as it passes above
the ring plane.
Before the
development of the telescope, the
gas giant Saturn was the most
distant planet known to astronomers.
Ten times farther from the Sun it
receives only 1 percent of the sunlight that Earth does.
Operating in this faint sunlight,
the Cassini spacecraft can't use solar arrays so, like
other missions to the outer Solar System, it will be powered by
radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs).
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
