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Cassini's principal objectives are to:
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was launched on October 15, 1997 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 using a U.S. Air Force Titan IVB/ Centaur launch vehicle. The launch vehicle was made up of a two-stage Titan IV booster rocket, two strap-on solid rocket motors, the Centaur upper stage, and a payload enclosure or fairing. The complete Cassini flight system was composed of the launch vehicle and the spacecraft.
The spacecraft is composed of the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe. The Cassini orbiter is planned to orbit Saturn and its moons for four years, and the plan sees the Huygens probe dive into the atmosphere of Titan and land on its surface. Cassini-Huygens is an international collaboration between three space agencies. Seventeen nations contributed to building the spacecraft. The Cassini orbiter was built and managed by NASA/ CalTechCalifornia Institute of Technology MottoThe truth shall make you free Established 1891 School type Private President David Baltimore Location Pasadena, CA, USA Enrollment 900 undergraduate,1,200 graduate Faculty 386 Endowment US$1. 3 billion Campus Urban,'s Jet Propulsion LaboratoryThe Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Pasadena, California builds and operates unmanned spacecraft for NASA. JPL-run projects include the Galileo Jupiter mission and the Mars rovers, including the 1997 Mars Pathfinder and the twin 2003 Mars Exp. The Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency. The Italian Space AgencyThe Italian Space Agency L'Agenzia Spaziale Italiana or ASI was founded in 1988 to promote, co-ordinate and conduct space activities in Italy. Operating under the Ministry of the Universities and of Scientific and Technological Research, the Agency cooper provided Cassini's high-gain communication antenna.
The total cost of the Cassini-Huygens mission is about US$The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. It is also widely used as a reserve currency outside of the United States. Currently, the issuance of currency is controlled by the Federal Reserve Banking system. The most commonly u3.26 billion, including $1.4 billion for pre-launch development, $704 million for mission operations, $54 million for tracking and $422 million for the launch vehicle. The U.S. contributed $2.6 billion, the European Space Agency $500 million and the Italian Space Agency $160 million.
A list of Cassini-Huygens abbreviationsBelow are abbreviations commonly used in conjunction with the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. AACS Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem ACP Aerosol Collector and Pyrolyzer (Huygens instrument) ACS Attitude Control Subsystem AFC AACS Flight Compu is available.
The spacecraft was originally planned to be the second three-axis stabilized, RTG-powered Mariner Mark II, a class of spacecraft developed for missions beyond the orbit of Mars. Cassini was being developed together with the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (or CRAF) spacecraft, however, various budget cuts and rescopings of the project forced NASA to terminate the CRAF development in order to save Cassini. As a result, the Cassini spacecraft became a more specialized design, canceling the implementation of the Mariner Mark II series.
The Cassini spacecraft, including the orbiter and the Huygens probe, is the largest, heaviest, and most complex interplanetary spacecraft built to date. The orbiter alone has a mass of 2150 kilograms. When the 350-kilogram Huygens probe, launch vehicle adapter, and 3132 kilograms of propellants were loaded at launch, the spacecraft had a mass of about 5600 kilograms. Only the two Phobos spacecraft sent to Mars by the Soviet Union were heavier. The Cassini spacecraft stood more than 6.8 metres (22.3 feet) high and was more than 4 metres (13.1 feet) wide. The complexity of the spacecraft is necessitated both by its trajectory or flight path to Saturn and by the ambitious program of scientific observations to be undertaken once the spacecraft reaches its destination. It functions with 1,630 interconnect circuits, 22,000 wire connections, and over 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) of cabling.
When Cassini is at Saturn it will be between 8.2 and 10.2 astronomical units from Earth. Because of this, it will take 68 to 84 minutes for signals to travel from Earth to the spacecraft, or vice versa. In practical terms this means that ground controllers will not be able to give "real-time" instructions to the spacecraft either for day-to-day operations or in cases of unexpected in-flight events. Even if the controllers respond immediately after becoming aware of a problem, nearly three hours will have passed before the response arrives.
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