baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) (11/14/90)
NASA SELECTS INVESTIGATIONS FOR CASSINI SATURN ORBITER MISSION
NASA has selected the principal investigators and science
teams for the Saturn Orbiter portion of the Cassini mission,
scheduled for launch in 1996. The investigators come from 11
U.S. universities, 3 NASA centers and 3 other U.S. laboratories
as well as 13 foreign countries.
The Saturn Orbiter will include 62 investigations
encompassing analysis of the structure and composition of
Saturn's atmosphere, the physical properties of ring particles, a
survey of moonlets within the rings and a close look at several
moons. The Cassini Saturn Orbiter also will deploy the Huygens
Probe, supplied by the European Space Agency (ESA), which will
descend through the atmosphere to the surface of Saturn's moon
Titan.
The Cassini mission is named after the 17th century
astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini who discovered several of
Saturn's moons and the major divisions of its rings. The first
spacecraft to visit Saturn since the 1981 flyby by Voyager 2,
Cassini will stay within the Saturnian system for 4 years and
pass within a few hundred kilometers of several of Saturn's
moons. Cassini's onboard cameras will take detailed pictures of
the intensely cratered surfaces of the icy moons, map their
topography with high-resolution radar and determine the surface
composition with spectroscopic instruments.
Onboard radar also will map a large portion of Titan's
cloud-shrouded surface, much like the Magellan mission at
Venus. Instruments on both the Orbiter and the Probe will
investigate the chemical processes that produce the large moon's
unique atmosphere. These processes may resemble the
prebiological chemical evolution which took place on the
primitive Earth.
The Probe, named for the 17th century scientist Christian
Huygens who discovered the true shape of Saturn's rings, will
examine the atmosphere and clouds and takes pictures of the
surface during its 3-hour descent. If it survives the landing,
the Huygens Probe will continue to make measurements and relay
data to the Saturn Orbiter until it loses radio contact. One
intriguing question that scientists hope Cassini will answer is
whether there are oceans of liquid hydrocarbons on the moon's
surface resulting from photochemical processes in Titan's upper
atmosphere. ESA recently announced the selection of
investigations to be conducted by the Cassini Huygens Probe.
The investigators also will examine the interactions of
Saturn's magnetosphere with dust and moonlets in the rings and
with Titan's atmosphere. This study will enable scientists to
gain an understanding of the processes involving interaction of
plasma, dust and radiation which were important during the
formation of planets in the early solar system.
Cassini's trajectory to Saturn takes it through the asteroid
belt and close to Jupiter for a gravity-assist flyby. This
trajectory will allow investigators to study an asteroid and make
observations of the Jovian system in addition to its planned
study of the Saturnian system, complementing the missions of
combined into a sing NASA to enhance their ability to
pursue common scientific objectives and reduce the overall
development cost. Both spacecraft are based on the Mariner Mark
II design with much of the flight hardware identical except for
minor modifications for unique science investigations.
Cassini is a joint project of NASA and ESA. Cassini mission
development and operations will be conducted by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. John Casani is the
Project Manager and Dr. Dennis Matson is the Project Scientist.
The CRAF/Cassini Program is managed by the Office of Space
Science and Applications, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
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| | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov
___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov
/___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 |
|_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 |