Cassini
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft consisted of Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe both equipped with an array of sophisticated instruments and cameras able to collect variety of measurements and images. The mission was a product of an international collaboration between seventeen nations. After a seven-year voyage that includes four gravity-assist maneuvers, Cassini-Huygens reached Saturn and its moons in July of 2004. There the spacecraft has begun to orbit around the system for four years, beaming home valuable data, and the Huygens probe entered the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, and descended via parachute onto its surface. Once the spacecraft's onboard recording device reaches capacity, it points its high-gain antenna toward Earth and downloads the data through one of the 70-meter (230-foot) antennas of the NASA’s world-wide Deep Space Network. (Cassini was sending home several gigabytes of data daily.)
The Cassini orbiter was built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency. The Italian Space Agency provided Cassini's high-gain communication antenna. More than 250 scientists worldwide were and still are studying the data streaming back from Saturn.
Astronautics faculty Dr. Jerry Hintz was Acting Navigation Team Chief for the Launch Operational Verification Test and the launch of the Cassini spacecraft, and Deputy Navigation Team Chief for development and early interplanetary cruise, providing team definition support, defining and leading test and training activities. Astronautics faculty Dr. Donald Shemansky was co-investigator in studies related to the Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph instrument.
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Cassini orbiter ready to go!
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The first look at Saturn!
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