Cassini spacecraft

Some of the elements of war have found a place in peacetime. The same kind of reaction in uranium that makes an atomic bomb explode can be controlled to make electricity in a nuclear power plant. The Cassini spacecraft now orbiting the planet Saturn runs on plutonium fuel. Plutonium-based fuel was also used to power devices that the Apollo 14 astronauts left on the Moon, such as a seismometer left to detect movements of the Moons crust. The Voyager spacecraft also sent its golden record out to the stars with... 

The Cassini spacecraft took this image of Saturn s rings using the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph. It shows there is more ice (turquoise) than rocks and dust (orange) in the outer parts of the rings. 

Venus. Reports of the chemical composition of the surface and nearsurface regions of the planet, as measured by Earth-based instruments, were reported as early as the mid-1990s. The Galileo and Cassini spacecraft collected similar data in the 1 mm region of the EM spectrum during their flybys of the planet in 1990 and 1998, respectively. 

The Cassini spacecraft explores the Saturn system. Cassini is powered by technology that converts heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity. 

The Cassini spacecraft successfully landed a small probe on tbe surface of Saturn s moon Titan in 2005. The probe discovered features that resemble lakes, rivers, and shorelines on Earth, but on Titan, they were formed by liquid methane instead of water. 

Scientists deal with large numbers. This picture was taken by the Cassini spacecraft on May 7, 2004, when it was 2.82 X 10 kilometers (17.6 million miles) from Saturn. 

Chiang, R.Y., Breckenridge, W.G., Wong, E.C., 1996. Self-tuning thruster control for Cassini spacecraft. In AIAA-96-3822, Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, San Diego, CA, July 29-31. 

Lee, A.Y., Hanover, G., 2005. Cassini spacecraft attitude control system flight performcUice. In AIAA-2005-6269, Guidance, Navigation, and Gontrol Gonference, San Francisco, CA, August 15-18. 

Pilinski, E.B., Lee, A.Y., 2009. Pointing-stability performance of the Cassini spacecraft. J. Spacecr. Rocket 46, 1007-1015. 

Radar investigations of natural satellites wiU rap enormous benefits from ground-based and space-borne radar reconnaissance. The near-surface physical properties of Deimos, lo, and Titan will be readily discernible with Arecibo. Doppler images of Titan may furnish a coarse-resolution, nearly global albedo map, while the Cassini spacecraft, with its high-resolution, 13.8-GHz (2.2-cm)... 

An instmment similar to MIMS (called VIMS) is on board the Cassini spacecraft scheduled to reach Saturn in July 2004. It consists of two grating spectrometers. VIMS-V covers the spectral range from 0.3 to 1.05 pum and VIMS-IR from 0.85 to 5.1 p,m. The resolving power is the same as in the Galileo instrument, 50-200. VIMS-V samples both spectral and spatial information using a two-dimensional array of detectors. The nominal field of view is 32 x 32 mrad with a 0.5 mrad pixel size. In VIMS-IR the spectrum is detected with a linear InSb array, cooled by... 

Another way to free the mirror carriage from the high precision requirement is to use retroreflectors instead of flat mirrors. Then a small tilt of the reflector does not matter. The original instrument of Fellgett used comer cubes. High precision requirements are shifted from the motor design to that of the reflector, where they are easier to handle, but are still not trivial. The Cassini spacecraft (to arrive at Saturn in July 2004) and the Mars Express spacecraft (to arrive at Mars in December... 

At this point, it is also appropriate to mention the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on the Cassini spacecraft, that flew past Jupiter in December 2000 and will arrive at Saturn in July 2004, and the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on the Mars Express spacecraft, to arrive at Mars in December 2003. Both spectrometers are dual channel instruments consisting of short- and long-wave interferometers. First, we discuss CIRS. 

Fig. 3.14 Jupiter structures in its dynamic atmosphere. At the lower right the great red spot is seen composed of 4 images taken by NASA s Cassini spacecraft on December 7, 2000. Courtesy NASA/JPL...

Fig. 4.9 The Cassini spacecraft, using its radar system, has discovered very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan s north pole. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute...

Fig. 4.11 Rhea taken by the Cassini spacecraft January 17, 2006. The streaks are revealed to consist of ice cliffs similar to those of Dione. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute...

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