Cassini is a home-town kid who rose to great heights. Designed, developed, and assembled at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, the orbiter has returned stunning images of Saturn and has greatly advanced scientists’ knowledge of the gas giant. Studies of the moon Titan have provided insight into what earth might have been like millions of years ago.
NASA and JPL announced in a press release on Wednesday that the Cassini-Huygens mission is being extended to 2017. Launched in 1997 with the European Space Agency's Huygens probe aboard, the Cassini orbiter has logged 2.6 billion miles, made more than 125 revolutions around Saturn, 67 flybys of Titan and eight close flybys of Enceladus, and returned 210,000 images. The 12 instruments onboard have returned nearly daily for nearly six years.
The spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, just after the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice. Its mission was scheduled to end in 2008, but received a 27-month extension and this latest extension that will take it into 2017. Dubbed “Cassini Solstice Mission”, it will allow scientists to study the northern summer solstice scientists other long-term weather changes on the planet and its moons, which have never been studied at this level of detail.
"The extension presents a unique opportunity to follow seasonal changes of an outer planet system all the way from its winter to its summer," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at JPL.
The rings, which have fascinated humans for centuries, and the magnetosphere will be observed through repeated dives between Saturn and its rings. During these dives, the spacecraft will study the internal structure of Saturn, its magnetic fluctuations and ring mass.
Scientists hope to learn answers to other questions that have developed during the course of the mission, including why Saturn seems to have an inconsistent rotation rate and how a probable subsurface ocean feeds the Enceladus' jets.
Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager at JPL, said "This extension is important because there is so much still to be learned at Saturn. The planet is full of secrets, and it doesn't give them up easily."
"Some of Cassini's most exciting discoveries still lie ahead," remarked Pappalardo.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
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