About Cassini

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PIA03883: Artists's Conception of Cassini Saturn Orbit Insertion. This is an artists concept of Cassini during the Saturn Orbit Insertion(SOI) maneuver on July 1, 2004, just after the main engine began firing. The spacecraft is moving out of the plane of the page and to the right (firing to reduce its spacecraft velocity with respect to Saturn) and has just crossed the ring plane. The SOI maneuver, which was approximately 90 minutes long, allowed Cassini to be captured by Saturn's gravity into a five-month orbit. Cassini's close proximity to the planet after the maneuver offered a unique opportunity to observe Saturn and its rings at extremely high resolution.
PIA03883: Artists's Conception of Cassini Saturn Orbit Insertion. This is an artists concept of Cassini during the Saturn Orbit Insertion(SOI) maneuver on July 1, 2004, just after the main engine began firing. The spacecraft is moving out of the plane of the page and to the right (firing to reduce its spacecraft velocity with respect to Saturn) and has just crossed the ring plane. The SOI maneuver, which was approximately 90 minutes long, allowed Cassini to be captured by Saturn's gravity into a five-month orbit. Cassini's close proximity to the planet after the maneuver offered a unique opportunity to observe Saturn and its rings at extremely high resolution.

The Cassini spacecraft is the first to explore the Saturn system of rings and moons from orbit. Cassini entered orbit on Jun. 30, 2004 and immediately began sending back intriguing images and data. The European Space Agency's Huygens Probe dove into Titan's thick atmosphere in January 2005. The sophisticated instruments on both spacecraft are providing scientists with vital data and the best views ever of this mysterious, vast region of our solar system.

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'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 are studying the data streaming back from Saturn on a daily basis.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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