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Cassini-Huygens Reaches Orbit Around Saturn
Mick Ohrberg writes "The probe Cassini-Huygens is now officially in orbit around Saturn. Last nights' retro-burn was completed according to plan, down to the second, which in and of itself is an amazing feat, considering all data received is 1h24m old, as well as 900 million miles away. I must say, it was fairly exciting to watch the webcast, and see the signal fade behind the A-ring, and all but disappear behind the B-ring - all in (somewhat delayed) real-time. The SOI (Saturn Orbit Insertion) also saw Cassini-Huygens whisk by Saturn at around 68,000 mph at an altitude of about 12,000 miles from the cloud tops - the closest to the gas giant the probe will ever be during its planned 4-year mission, for instance the much awaited Huygens mission to Titan."
...I understand that the ESA-developed component of the mission -- the lander -- is due to touch down on Titan on Christmas day this year. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Wonder how that'll go.
:)
Will they never learn?
OK so I guess they'd've had to be quite foresighted to guess the events of Dec 25th 2003 seven years ago when they launched the thing.
These sigs are more interesting tha
They basically used a "slingshot" manuever to rocket this thing around the sun twice and use the sun's gravitational pull to fling Cassini toward Saturn. Very dangerous thing to do with a rocket full of plutonium. Thank god it didn't blow up like the Columbia or Challenger shuttles.
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
NASA and JPL did their job.
ESA better not screw up. This is the big one. Its the superbowl. You either put up or shut up. If you don't perform this time, better outsource space exploration to the russians or chinese.