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75-682: Cassini–Huygens ( / k ə ˈ s iː n i ˈ h ɔɪ ɡ ən z / kə- SEE -nee HOY -gənz ), commonly called Cassini , was a space-research mission by NASA , the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites . The Flagship -class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander , which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan . Cassini

150-451: A Mariner Mark II mission and generically. Cassini-Huygens was a Flagship -class mission to the outer planets. The other planetary flagships include Galileo , Voyager , and Viking . Cassini had several objectives, including: Cassini–Huygens was launched on October 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station 's Space Launch Complex 40 using a U.S. Air Force Titan IV B/ Centaur rocket. The complete launcher

225-399: A synthetic aperture radar mapper, a charge-coupled device imaging system, a visible/ infrared mapping spectrometer , a composite infrared spectrometer, a cosmic dust analyzer, a radio and plasma wave experiment, a plasma spectrometer, an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, a magnetospheric imaging instrument, a magnetometer and an ion /neutral mass spectrometer . Telemetry from

300-444: A working group to investigate future cooperative missions. Two European scientists suggested a paired Saturn Orbiter and Titan Probe as a possible joint mission. In 1983, NASA's Solar System Exploration Committee recommended the same Orbiter and Probe pair as a core NASA project. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) performed a joint study of the potential mission from 1984 to 1985. ESA continued with its own study in 1986, while

375-603: A "mission of firsts" that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System . Cassini ' s planners originally scheduled a mission of four years, from June 2004 to May 2008. The mission was extended for another two years until September 2010, branded the Cassini Equinox Mission . The mission

450-400: A number of risky passes through the gaps between Saturn and its inner rings. This phase aimed to maximize Cassini 's scientific outcome before the spacecraft was intentionally destroyed to prevent potential contamination of Saturn's moons if Cassini were to unintentionally crash into them when maneuvering the probe was no longer possible due to power loss or other communication issues at

525-491: A radio link between Huygens and Cassini provided by Probe Data Relay Subsystem (PDRS). As the probe's mission could not be telecommanded from Earth because of the great distance, it was automatically managed by the Command Data Management Subsystem (CDMS). The PDRS and CDMS were provided by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). After Cassini 's launch, it was discovered that data sent from

600-508: A result, Cassini became more specialized. The Mariner Mark II series was cancelled. The combined orbiter and probe is the third-largest uncrewed interplanetary spacecraft ever successfully launched, behind the Phobos 1 and 2 Mars probes, as well as being among the most complex. The orbiter had a mass of 2,150 kg (4,740 lb), the probe 350 kg (770 lb) including 30 kg (66 lb) of probe support equipment left on

675-582: A series of calibration photos. On January 23, 2000, Cassini performed a flyby of the asteroid 2685 Masursky at around 10:00 UTC. It took photos in the period five to seven hours before the flyby at a distance of 1.6 × 10 ^  km (0.99 × 10 ^  mi) and a diameter of 15 to 20 km (9.3 to 12.4 mi) was estimated for the asteroid. Cassini made its closest approach to Jupiter on December 30, 2000, at 9.7 million kilometers, and made many scientific measurements. About 26,000 images of Jupiter, its faint rings , and its moons were taken during

750-575: A service organisation and left it to pay for their efforts from the ESRO budget. After the Bannier Report the facility gained overall executive authority for spacecraft development and was merged with ESLAB. The satellite control centre was also moved to ESOC . ESTEC was originally to be located in Delft (South Holland) but because of unforeseen difficulties, Noordwijk was chosen instead. In 1964

825-589: A way that, at closest approach to Saturn, it was only 3,000 km (1,900 mi) above the planet's cloudtops, below the inner edge of the D ring . This sequence of "proximal orbits" ended when its final encounter with Titan sent the probe into Saturn's atmosphere to be destroyed. Cassini–Huygens ' s origins date to 1982, when the European Science Foundation and the American National Academy of Sciences formed

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900-562: Is confined, to a flat-disk, a puffed disk, or a squirting jet. The GEMS project was cancelled in June 2012, projected to fail time and finance limits. The purpose of the GEMS mission continues to be relevant (as of 2019). Salyut 1 was the first space station ever built. It was launched on April 19, 1971 by the Soviet Union . The first crew failed entry into the space station. The second crew

975-557: Is the European Space Agency 's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk , South Holland , in the western Netherlands , although several kilometers off the village but immediately linked to the most Northern district of the nearby town Katwijk . At ESTEC, about 2500 engineers, technicians and scientists work hands-on with mission design, spacecraft and space technology. ESTEC provides extensive testing facilities to verify

1050-684: The Cassini Telemetry Dictionary. Out of these 67 lower complexity mini-packets, 6 mini-packets contained the subsystem covariance and Kalman gain elements (161 measurements), not used during normal mission operations. This left 947 measurements in 61 mini-packets. A total of seven telemetry maps corresponding to 7 AACS telemetry modes were constructed. These modes are: (1) Record; (2) Nominal Cruise; (3) Medium Slow Cruise; (4) Slow Cruise; (5) Orbital Ops; (6) Av; (7) ATE (Attitude Estimator) Calibration. These 7 maps cover all spacecraft telemetry modes. The Huygens probe, supplied by

1125-687: The Cassini mission from the three candidates at hand and promising that NASA would commit to the mission as soon as ESA did. At the time, NASA was becoming more sensitive to the strain that had developed between the American and European space programs as a result of European perceptions that NASA had not treated it like an equal during previous collaborations. NASA officials and advisers involved in promoting and planning Cassini–Huygens attempted to correct this trend by stressing their desire to evenly share any scientific and technology benefits resulting from

1200-539: The Cassini orbiter was powered by three GPHS-RTG radioisotope thermoelectric generators , which use heat from the decay of about 33 kg (73 lb) of plutonium-238 (in the form of plutonium dioxide ) to generate direct current electricity via thermoelectrics . The RTGs on the Cassini mission have the same design as those used on the New Horizons , Galileo , and Ulysses space probes, and they were designed to have very long operational lifetimes. At

1275-507: The Cassini orbiter's high-gain radio antenna , with the incorporation of a low-gain antenna (to ensure telecommunications with the Earth for the entire duration of the mission), a compact and lightweight radar , which also used the high-gain antenna and served as a synthetic-aperture radar , a radar altimeter , a radiometer , the radio science subsystem (RSS), and the visible -channel portion VIMS-V of VIMS spectrometer . NASA provided

1350-461: The European Space Agency (ESA) and named after the 17th century Dutch astronomer who first discovered Titan, Christiaan Huygens , scrutinized the clouds, atmosphere, and surface of Saturn's moon Titan in its descent on January 15, 2005. It was designed to enter and brake in Titan's atmosphere and parachute a fully instrumented robotic laboratory down to the surface. The probe system consisted of

1425-464: The European Space Agency in 2002, and continuing to operate (as of March 2019). INTEGRAL provides insight into the most energetic cosmological formations in space including, black holes, neutron stars, and supernovas. INTEGRAL plays an important role researching gamma-rays, one of the most exotic and energetic phenomena in space. The NASA-led GEMS mission was scheduled to launch for November 2014. The spacecraft would use an X-Ray telescope to measure

1500-495: The Huygens probe to Cassini orbiter (and then re-transmitted to Earth) would be largely unreadable. The cause was that the bandwidth of signal processing electronics was too narrow and the anticipated Doppler shift between the lander and the mother craft would put the signals out of the system's range. Thus, Cassini 's receiver would be unable to receive the data from Huygens during its descent to Titan. A work-around

1575-633: The New Horizons probe are expected to enter interstellar medium in the near future, but these three are expected to have depleted available power before then, so the point of exit cannot be confirmed precisely. Predicting probes speed is imprecise as they pass through the variable heliosphere . Pioneer 10 is roughly at the outer edge of the heliosphere in 2019. New Horizons should reach it by 2040, and Pioneer 11 by 2060. Two Voyager probes have reached interstellar medium , and three other probes are expected to join that list. Space research includes

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1650-492: The 19 mile long contact binary . Ultima Thule has an orbital period around 298 years, is 4.1 billion miles from Earth, and over 1 billion miles beyond Pluto . The Voyager 1 probe launched on 5 September 1977, and flew beyond the edge of our solar system in August 2012 to the interstellar medium . The farthest human object from the Earth, predictions include collision, an Oort cloud , and destiny, "perhaps eternally—to wander

1725-646: The ASI/NASA Cassini orbiter, named for the Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini , discoverer of Saturn's ring divisions and four of its satellites; and the ESA-developed Huygens probe , named for the Dutch astronomer, mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens , discoverer of Titan. The mission was commonly called Saturn Orbiter Titan Probe (SOTP) during gestation, both as

1800-614: The American astronaut Sally Ride , in her influential 1987 report NASA Leadership and America's Future in Space , also examined and approved of the Cassini mission. While Ride's report described the Saturn orbiter and probe as a NASA solo mission, in 1988 the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications of NASA, Len Fisk, returned to the idea of a joint NASA and ESA mission. He wrote to his counterpart at ESA, Roger Bonnet, strongly suggesting that ESA choose

1875-519: The COMET consortium and in the year 2000 the test management, maintenance, operations and marketing of the test centre has been taken over by European Test Services B.V. (a subsidiary of IABG mbH and Intespace SA); The facilities are still belonging to ESA which is responsible for the facility development, test methodologies, test related engineering and subcontractor control. Since the year 2000 not only tests for space industry have been performed but

1950-624: The DTC) in 1986, The Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) in 1989 and the Compact Payload Test Range (CPTR) in 1990. In the 1990s and 2000s the following major facilities have been added: The hydraulic shaker system (HYDRA), The Fr building with additional clean rooms (2000), The Large EMC facility (Maxwell) and the QUAD Shaker in 2008. In 1997 the test operations and facilities maintenance activities were subcontracted to

2025-576: The ESA $ 500 million (15%), and the ASI $ 160 million (5%). However, these figures are from the press kit which was prepared in October 2000. They do not include inflation over the course of a very long mission, nor do they include the cost of the extended missions. The primary mission for Cassini was completed on July 30, 2008. The mission was extended to June 2010 ( Cassini Equinox Mission). This studied

2100-531: The ESRO decided to create an independent test centre that would be part of ESTEC. The first building with vibration and thermal vacuum facilities (named F-building) was completed in 1966 and the first satellite to be tested was the ESRO-1 satellite in 1968. From the 1970s to the late 1980s the test centre was enlarged by following facilities: The Dynamic Test Chamber (DTC) in 1975, The Multishaker in 1983, The EMC facility in 1985, The Large Space simulator (by extending

2175-457: The Earth. It took 68 to 84 minutes for radio signals to travel from Earth to the spacecraft, and vice versa. Thus ground controllers could not give "real-time" instructions for daily operations or for unexpected events. Even if response were immediate, more than two hours would have passed between the occurrence of a problem and the reception of the engineers' response by the satellite. Instruments: Cassini ' s instrumentation consisted of:

2250-493: The Hubble, named after American astronomer Edwin Hubble , go back as far as 1946. In the present day, the Hubble is used to identify exo-planets and give detailed accounts of events in our own solar system. Hubbles visible-light observations are combined with the other great observatories to give us some of the most detailed images of the visible universe. INTEGRAL is one of the most powerful gamma-ray observatories, launched by

2325-457: The Milky Way." Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977 travelling slower than Voyager 1 and reached interstellar medium by the end of 2018. Voyager 2 is the only Earth probe to have visited the ice giants of Neptune or Uranus Neither Voyager is aimed at a particular visible object, but both continue to send research data to NASA Deep Space Network as of 2019. Two Pioneer probes and

Cassini–Huygens - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-482: The SED (Spin/Eject device), which provided a relative separation speed of 0.35 metres per second (1.1 ft/s) and a spin rate of 7.5 rpm. It returned data to Earth for around 90 minutes, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System and the first landing on a moon other than Earth's Moon. At the end of its mission, the Cassini spacecraft executed its "Grand Finale":

2475-496: The Saturn system in detail during the planet's equinox , which happened in August 2009. On February 3, 2010, NASA announced another extension for Cassini , lasting 6 1 ⁄ 2  years until 2017, ending at the time of summer solstice in Saturn's northern hemisphere ( Cassini Solstice Mission). The extension enabled another 155 revolutions around the planet, 54 flybys of Titan and 11 flybys of Enceladus . In 2017, an encounter with Titan changed its orbit in such

2550-534: The Sun. Sounding rockets helped show us the structure of the upper atmosphere . As higher altitudes were reached, space physics emerged as a field of research with studies of Earths aurorae , ionosphere and magnetosphere . The first artificial satellite , Russian Sputnik 1 , launched on October 4, 1957, four months before the United States first, Explorer 1 . The major discovery of satellite research

2625-782: The UARS finished its scientific career in 2005. Great Observatories program is the flagship NASA telescope program. The Great Observatories program pushes forward our understanding of the universe with detailed observation of the sky, based in gamma rays, ultraviolet, x-ray, infrared, and visible, light spectrums . The four main telescopes for the Great Observatories program are, Hubble Space Telescope ( visible , ultraviolet ), launched 1990, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory ( gamma ), launched 1991 and retired 2000, Chandra X-Ray Observatory ( x-ray ), launched 1999, and Spitzer Space Telescope ( infrared ), launched 2003. Origins of

2700-788: The VIMS infrared counterpart, as well as the Main Electronic Assembly, which included electronic sub-assemblies provided by CNES of France. On April 16, 2008, NASA announced a two-year extension of the funding for ground operations of this mission, at which point it was renamed the Cassini Equinox Mission. The round of funding was again extended in February 2010 with the Cassini Solstice Mission . The mission consisted of two main elements:

2775-414: The areas of net-rising atmospheric motion on Jupiter, [so] the net motion in the zones has to be sinking". Space research Space exploration is also a form of space research. Chinese rockets were used in ceremony and as weaponry since the 13th century, but no rocket would overcome Earth's gravity until the latter half of the 20th century. Space-capable rocketry appeared simultaneously in

2850-492: The asteroid 2685 Masursky , and Jupiter (December 2000). The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini ' s trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft. The mission was successful beyond expectations – NASA's Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Green , described Cassini-Huygens as

2925-412: The communications antenna and other special transmitters (an S-band transmitter and a dual-frequency K a -band system) was also used to make observations of the atmospheres of Titan and Saturn and to measure the gravity fields of the planet and its satellites. The HSP channel is designed to observe starlight that passes through Saturn's rings (known as stellar occultations) in order to understand

3000-464: The end of its operational lifespan. The atmospheric entry of Cassini ended the mission, but analysis of the returned data will continue for many years. Scientists and individuals from 27 countries made up the joint team responsible for designing, building, flying and collecting data from the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe . NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States, where

3075-549: The end of the nominal 11-year Cassini mission, they were still able to produce 600 to 700 watts of electrical power. (Leftover hardware from the Cassini RTG Program was modified and used to power the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt , which was designed and launched later.) Power distribution was accomplished by 192 solid-state power switches , which also functioned as circuit breakers in

Cassini–Huygens - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-508: The establishment of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in 1958, which achieved an exchange of scientific information between east and west during the cold war, despite the military origin of the rocket technology underlying the research field. On April 12, 1961, Russian Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit Earth, in Vostok 1 . In 1961, US astronaut Alan Shepard was

3225-423: The event of an overload condition. The switches used MOSFETs that featured better efficiency and a longer lifetime as compared to conventional switches, while at the same time eliminating transients . However, these solid-state circuit breakers were prone to erroneous tripping (presumably from cosmic rays), requiring them to reset and causing losses in experimental data. To gain momentum while already in flight,

3300-563: The first American in space. And on July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first human on the Moon . On April 19, 1971, the Soviet Union launched the Salyut 1 , the first space station of substantial duration, a successful 23 day mission, sadly ruined by transport disasters. On May 14, 1973, Skylab , the first American space station launched, on a modified Saturn V rocket . Skylab

3375-577: The following fields of science: Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was a NASA -led mission launched on September 12, 1991. The 5,900 kg (13,000 lb) satellite was deployed from the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-48 mission on 15 September 1991. It was the first multi-instrumented satellite to study various aspects of the Earth's atmosphere and have a better understanding of photochemistry . After 14 years of service,

3450-492: The material's radioactive decay was turned into electricity. Huygens was supported by Cassini during cruise, but used chemical batteries when independent. The probe contained a DVD with more than 616,400 signatures from citizens in 81 countries, collected in a public campaign. Until September 2017 the Cassini probe continued orbiting Saturn at a distance of between 8.2 and 10.2 astronomical units (1.23 × 10 and 1.53 × 10  km ; 760,000,000 and 950,000,000  mi ) from

3525-460: The mission. In part, this newfound spirit of cooperation with Europe was driven by a sense of competition with the Soviet Union , which had begun to cooperate more closely with Europe as ESA drew further away from NASA. Late in 1988, ESA chose Cassini–Huygens as its next major mission and the following year the program received major funding in the US. The collaboration not only improved relations between

3600-505: The orbiter was assembled, managed the mission. The European Space Research and Technology Centre developed Huygens . The centre's prime contractor, Aérospatiale of France (part of Thales Alenia Space from 2005), assembled the probe with equipment and instruments supplied by many European countries (including Huygens ' batteries and two scientific instruments from the United States). The Italian Space Agency (ASI) provided

3675-546: The orbiter. With the launch vehicle adapter and 3,132 kg (6,905 lb) of propellants at launch, the spacecraft had a mass of 5,600 kg (12,300 lb). The Cassini spacecraft was 6.8 meters (22 ft) high and 4 meters (13 ft) wide. Spacecraft complexity was increased by its trajectory (flight path) to Saturn, and by the ambitious science at its destination. Cassini had 1,630 interconnected electronic components , 22,000 wire connections, and 14 kilometers (8.7 mi) of cabling. The core control computer CPU

3750-454: The polarization of x-rays coming from black holes and neutron stars. It would research into remnants of supernovae, stars that have exploded. Few experiments have been conducted in X-Ray polarization since the 1970s, and scientists anticipated GEMS to break new ground. Understanding x-ray polarisation will improve scientists knowledge of black holes, in particular whether matter around a black hole

3825-611: The potential environmental impact a launch failure might have (because of its plutonium power source) attempted to derail it through protests and lawsuits until and past its 1997 launch. The spacecraft was 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 , after the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission, but budget cuts and project rescopings forced NASA to terminate CRAF development to save Cassini . As

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3900-430: The previous record, almost ten years by Russian station Mir . The ISS provides research in microgravity, and exposure to the local space environment. Crew members conduct tests relevant to biology, physics, astronomy, and others. Even studying the experience and health of the crew advances space research. European Space Research and Technology Centre The European Space Research and Technology Centre ( ESTEC )

3975-414: The probe itself which descended to Titan, and the probe support equipment (PSE) which remained attached to the orbiting spacecraft. The PSE includes electronics that track the probe, recover the data gathered during its descent, and process and deliver the data to the orbiter that transmits it to Earth. The core control computer CPU was a redundant MIL-STD-1750A control system. The data were transmitted by

4050-536: The probe to collide with the Earth, NASA's complete environmental impact study estimated that, in the worst case (with an acute angle of entry in which Cassini would gradually burn up), a significant fraction of the 33 kg of nuclear fuel inside the RTGs would have been dispersed into the Earth's atmosphere so that up to five billion people (i.e. almost the entire terrestrial population) could have been exposed, causing up to an estimated 5,000 additional cancer deaths over

4125-600: The proper operation of spacecraft, such as the Large Space Simulator (LSS), acoustic and electromagnetic testing bays, multi-axis vibration tables and the ESA Propulsion Laboratory (EPL). Prior to launch, almost all of the equipment that ESA launches is tested in some degree at ESTEC. The Space Expo is ESTEC's visitors centre. It has a permanent exhibition about space exploration . The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC)

4200-399: The six-month flyby. It produced the most detailed global color portrait of the planet yet (see image at right), in which the smallest visible features are approximately 60 km (37 mi) across. A major finding of the flyby, announced on March 6, 2003, was of Jupiter's atmospheric circulation. Dark "belts" alternate with light "zones" in the atmosphere, and scientists had long considered

4275-411: The space probe with enough momentum to travel all the way out to the asteroid belt , while the Sun's gravity pulled the space probe back into the inner Solar System. On August 18, 1999, at 03:28 UTC, the craft made a gravitational-assist flyby of the Earth. One hour and 20 minutes before closest approach, Cassini made its closest approach to the Earth's Moon at 377,000 kilometers, and it took

4350-493: The structure and optical depth of the rings. Stellar occultation data from both the HSP and FUV channels confirmed the existence of water vapor plumes at the south pole of Enceladus, as well as characterized the composition of the plumes. Because of Saturn's distance from the Sun, solar arrays were not feasible as power sources for this space probe. To generate enough power, such arrays would have been too large and too heavy. Instead,

4425-407: The subsequent decades (0.0005 per cent, i.e. a fraction 0.000005, of a billion cancer deaths expected anyway from other causes; the product is incorrectly calculated elsewhere as 500,000 deaths). However, the chance of this happening were estimated to be less than one in one million, i.e. a chance of one person dying (assuming 5,000 deaths) as less than 1 in 200. NASA's risk analysis to use plutonium

4500-448: The trajectory of the Cassini mission included several gravitational slingshot maneuvers: two fly-by passes of Venus , one more of the Earth, and then one of the planet Jupiter . The terrestrial flyby was the final instance when the probe posed any conceivable danger to human beings. The maneuver was successful, with Cassini passing by 1,171 km (728 mi) above the Earth on August 18, 1999. Had there been any malfunction causing

4575-622: The two space programs but also helped Cassini–Huygens survive congressional budget cuts in the United States. Cassini–Huygens came under fire politically in both 1992 and 1994, but NASA successfully persuaded the United States Congress that it would be unwise to halt the project after ESA had already poured funds into development because frustration on broken space exploration promises might spill over into other areas of foreign relations. The project proceeded politically smoothly after 1994, although citizens' groups concerned about

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4650-539: The work of three scientists, in three separate countries. In Russia, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky , in the United States, Robert H. Goddard , and in Germany, Hermann Oberth . The United States and the Soviet Union created their own missile programs. The space research field evolved as scientific investigation based on advancing rocket technology. In 1948–1949 detectors on V-2 rocket flights detected x-rays from

4725-410: The zones, with their pale clouds, to be areas of upwelling air, partly because many clouds on Earth form where air is rising. But analysis of Cassini imagery showed that individual storm cells of upwelling bright-white clouds, too small to see from Earth, pop up almost without exception in the dark belts. According to Anthony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies , "the belts must be

4800-603: Was a redundant system using the MIL-STD-1750A instruction set architecture . The main propulsion system consisted of one prime and one backup R-4D bipropellant rocket engine. The thrust of each engine was 490  N (110  lbf ) and the total spacecraft delta-v was 2,352 m/s (5,260 mph). Smaller monopropellant rockets provided attitude control. Cassini was powered by 32.7 kg (72 lb) of nuclear fuel, mainly plutonium dioxide (containing 28.3 kg (62 lb) of pure plutonium ). The heat from

4875-591: Was able to spend twenty-three days in the space station, but this achievement was quickly overshadowed since the crew died on reentry to Earth. Salyut 1 was intentionally deorbited six months into orbit since it prematurely ran out of fuel. Skylab was the first American space station. It was 4 times larger than Salyut 1. Skylab was launched on May 14, 1973. It rotated through three crews of three during its operational time. Skylab's experiments confirmed coronal holes and were able to photograph eight solar flares. Soviet (later Russian) station Mir , from 1986 to 2001,

4950-477: Was developed from the ground up, due to the spacecraft using a more modern set of computers than previous missions. Therefore, Cassini was the first spacecraft to adopt mini-packets to reduce the complexity of the Telemetry Dictionary, and the software development process led to the creation of a Telemetry Manager for the mission. There were around 1088 channels (in 67 mini-packets) assembled in

5025-406: Was extended a second and final time with the Cassini Solstice Mission , lasting another seven years until September 15, 2017, on which date Cassini was de-orbited to burn up in Saturn's upper atmosphere. The Huygens module traveled with Cassini until its separation from the probe on December 25, 2004; Huygens landed by parachute on Titan on January 14, 2005. The separation was facilitated by

5100-464: Was found to recover the mission. The trajectory of Cassini was altered to reduce the line of sight velocity and therefore the doppler shift. Cassini' s subsequent trajectory was identical to the previously planned one, although the change replaced two orbits prior to the Huygens mission with three, shorter orbits. The Cassini space probe performed two gravitational-assist flybys of Venus on April 26, 1998, and June 24, 1999. These flybys provided

5175-619: Was founded in 1968. The centre was to be the core of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). Its responsibilities included the engineering and testing of satellites and their payloads, the integration of scientific instruments in these payloads, and making arrangements for their launch. In some cases member states were to produce the scientific instruments for ESRO or produce them as part of their own national effort and compensate ESTEC for its service. In practice, national organisations simply used ESTEC as

5250-734: Was in 1958, when Explorer 1 detected the Van Allen radiation belts . Planetology reached a new stage with the Russian Luna programme , between 1959 and 1976, a series of lunar probes which gave us evidence of the Moons chemical composition, gravity, temperature, soil samples, the first photographs of the far side of the Moon by Luna 3 , and the first remotely controlled robots ( Lunokhod ) to land on another planetary body . The early space researchers obtained an important international forum with

5325-525: Was made up of a two-stage Titan IV booster rocket , two strap-on solid rocket engines , the Centaur upper stage, and a payload enclosure, or fairing. The total cost of this scientific exploration mission was about US$ 3.26  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 United States contributed $ 2.6 billion (80%),

5400-445: Was occupied for 24 weeks. 486958 Arrokoth is the name of the farthest and most primitive object visited by human spacecraft. Originally designated "1110113Y" when detected by Hubble in 2014, the planetessimal was reached by the New Horizons probe on 1 January 2019 after a week long manoeuvering phase. New Horizons detected Ultima Thule from 107 million miles and performed a total 9 days of manoeuvres to pass within 3,500 miles of

5475-469: Was publicly criticized by Michio Kaku on the grounds that casualties, property damage, and lawsuits resulting from a possible accident, as well as the potential use of other energy sources, such as solar and fuel cells, were underestimated. The Cassini spacecraft was capable of transmitting in several different telemetry formats. The telemetry subsystem is perhaps the most important subsystem, because without it there could be no data return. The telemetry

5550-656: Was the first long term inhabited space station. Occupied in low Earth orbit for twelve and a half years, Mir served a permanent microgravity laboratory. Crews experimented with biology , human biology , physics , astronomy , meteorology and spacecraft systems. Goals included developing technologies for permanent occupation of space . The International Space Station received its first crew as part of STS-88 , in December 1998, an internationally co-operative mission of almost 20 participants. The station has been continuously occupied for 24 years and 20 days, exceeding

5625-538: Was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens . Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004. The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999),

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