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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.
During planning for its extended missions, various future plans for Cassini were evaluated on the basis of scientific value, cost, and time. [3] [7] Some of the options examined included collision with Saturn atmosphere, an icy satellite, or rings; another was departure from Saturn orbit to Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, or a centaur.
Cassini has run low on propellant, and will become an artificial meteor at Saturn on Friday morning as it plunges to its death. NASA is now receiving the last photos ever taken by the Cassini ...
During the four hours it took Cassini to image the entire 647,808 kilometres (402,529 mi)-wide scene, the spacecraft captured a total of 323 images, 141 of which were used in the mosaic. [6] NASA revealed that this imaging marked the first time four planets – Saturn, Earth, Mars, and Venus – had been captured at once in visible light by the ...
The Magellan spacecraft was a space probe sent to the planet Venus, the first uncrewed interplanetary spacecraft to be launched by NASA since its successful Pioneer Orbiter, also to Venus, in 1978. It was also the first deep-space probe to be launched on the Space Shuttle. [38] In 1993, it employed aerobraking techniques to lower its orbit.
Diagram of an RTG used on the Cassini probe. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), sometimes referred to as a radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity by the Seebeck effect.
[6] [7] Cassini conducted another flyby of Titan on April 22, 2017, positioning the probe to pass within a precise 3,100 km (1,900 mi) of Saturn’s clouds. This maneuver was repeated 22 times until September 15, 2017, at 11:55:46 UTC , when communication with Cassini’s high-gain antenna was lost during the final flyby of Saturn.
GPHS-RTG or general-purpose heat source — radioisotope thermoelectric generator, is a specific design of the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) used on US space missions. The GPHS-RTG was used on Ulysses (1), Galileo (2), Cassini-Huygens (3), and New Horizons (1). [1] The GPHS-RTG has an overall diameter of 0.422 m and a length of 1. ...