The most ambitious joint planetary exploration mission ever mounted in the history of space exploration, the Cassini-Huygens mission, remains to be a remarkable achievement and a modern prodigy. This mission was a joint effort among the European Space Agency (ESA), the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) or the Italian Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (European Space Agency, 2004). Its designation as a Flagship-class mission made the Cassini-Huygens mission one of a kind and a marvel of its own. Launched in 1997, the Cassini probe took seven years to reach the planet Saturn. It is the fourth probe to reach Saturn but the first to enter into orbit around Saturn. Since its arrival in 2004, the Cassini probe has studied the planet and its numerous natural satellites or moons. In 1980, the development of this probe began, and it included the design of an orbiter, which is Cassini and a probe that would land on the surface of its major moon, Titan. This lander is what was called Huygens. Both spacecraft were named after two great astronomers Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Cassini.
Cassini entered the orbit of Saturn on July 1, 2004, and on December 25 of the same year, Huygens detached from the main space instrument and chartered course towards Titan, Saturn’s major moon. On January 14 the following year, Huygens successfully landed on Titan and subsequently started relaying data back to Earth using the orbiter Cassini. In all the missions undertaken in the outer solar system, this was the first one that involved a successful landing, thereby making the Cassini-Huygens mission one of a kind. Cassini persistently continued to study the system of planet Saturn in the successive years, and as of July 2017, it is presently operating in orbit around the planet Saturn; picking sensitive data and other information that are crucial for the thorough understanding of the planet. However, due to the rapid drop in fuel reserves, the Cassini spacecraft is on the brink of its final phase of the mission. According to plan, the spacecraft will pass through a number of risky gaps between the outer ring of Saturn and the planet itself for it to maximize its data collection and scientific inferences before its intentional destruction on September 15, 2017 ("Cassini-Huygens", 2017). This planned probe deorbiting is crucial and essential since it highly reduces the chances of the probe to collide with one of the many satellites orbiting the planet ultimately contaminating it.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The immensity of this mission is sometimes underrated and grossly underestimated. However, considerable effort went in the launching of this probe, placing it on course toward Saturn and maintaining subsequent integral missions that enabled the smooth collection of data and other information pertinent to the understanding of Saturn. Totalling the countries that made up the team tasked with the design, build and overall flight of the probe in addition to its data collection objective both from the orbiter, Cassini and the lander, Huygens, was seventeen. The Jet Propulsion Lab of NASA manages the mission since it primarily designed and built the orbiter Cassini. The European Space Research and Technology Centre advanced the Huygens probe, while the center’s principal contractor Thales Alenia Space located in France used various implements and apparatus to assemble the probe. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) also contributed by providing a radio antenna with a high frequency to facilitate proper telecommunications between earth systems and the planet. This technology also accorded a lightweight and compact radar system and a host of other measurement instruments ("Cassini-Huygens", 2017).
The primary objectives of this mission were completed on July 30, 2008. These objectives included;
Determining the entire structure of the rings of Saturn in three-dimensions accounting for their dynamic behavior.
Ascertaining the geological history of every satellite and determining its compositional makeup of the surfaces.
Determining the origin and nature of the leading hemisphere and the presence of the dark material inside it in one of Saturn’s satellites called Lapetus.
Ascertaining and measuring the dynamics of the magnetosphere in Saturn and coming up with a three-dimensional structure depicting its existence.
Other objectives were to study the tendencies of the atmosphere of Saturn at cloud level and ascertaining its dynamic behaviors as well as determining the time variability of the clouds of Titan and characterizing the surface and regional scale of Titan. These objectives were of utmost significance to the accomplishment of the mission and formed the backbone of the reasons for sending probes to Saturn. After completion of the primary mission, NASA announced yet another additional extension for Cassini that would see the mission lengthen by six and a half years. This extension would result to a further 11 flybys of Enceladus, 54 Titan flybys, and 155 revolutions around Saturn.
Apart from going to Saturn, the Cassini space probe did two flybys that were gravitational assisted by Venus on June 1999 and April 1998. These flybys were crucial in providing the necessary momentum to push the probe further to the asteroid belt. Other flybys were performed when the probe was pulled into the inner solar system by the sun’s gravitational pull. These flybys involved the moon and the earth. While the probe gained enough momentum, it also did a Jupiter flyby, making a close approach and taking thousands of photos of its moons and faint rings. In the course of these flybys, the probe took some of the most celebrated pictures of our solar system; the most comprehensive global color portrait of the planets ever seen including our moon. Moreover, the probe took atmospheric measurements during Jupiter’s circulation. These measures enabled scientists to deduce the dark “belts” and substitute light “areas” as pockets of upwelling air where clouds would form, consequently explaining the inconsistent pale on its surface. Other atmospheric observations included the high atmospheric haze near Jupiter’s north pole resulting in a dark oval feature that consistently swirled. Other discoveries made in the rings of Jupiter showed an irregular composition of its particles.
As a whole, the missions of Cassini led to the discovery of seven moons that orbited Saturn. Scientists made these discoveries using images taken by Cassini and findings of Pallene, Methone and Polydeuces done in 2004. Following this discovery, more moons were found in the Keeler gap. Some of the key facts of Saturn as measured by Cassini included its diameter, density, the length of day or rotation, period of year or revolution around the sun, its rings, known moons and the composition of its atmosphere. Overall, Saturn has a diameter of 74,975 miles; its density is 0.69 g/cm3; its length of the day is 10 hours and 40 minutes; its revolution around the sun is approximately 29.42 Earth years. The planet has seven rings and 31 satellites orbiting it and has an atmospheric composition of Hydrogen, methane, helium among other hydrocarbons (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2003). Following an analysis by the probe Huygens Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn exhibited the following properties: its distance to Saturn was found to be 759, 200 miles; its diameter 3,199 miles. Its density is 1.82 g/cm3, which is equivalent to 1.82 times water’s density; the surface temperature is -1810C and its pressure is 1.5 bars, which is relative to 1.5 times the sea level pressure on Earth. The atmospheric composition is primarily nitrogen, methane and other hydrocarbons. Ultimately, considering the primary objectives, the mission was a success and presently continues to shed more light about planet Saturn and the mysteries of the outer solar system (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2003).
References
Cassini-Huygens . (2017). Jpl.nasa.gov . Retrieved 13 July 2017, from https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/cassini-huygens/
European Space Agency. (2004). Cassini-Huygens .
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2003). Cassini–Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan . Pasadena, California: Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
