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KSC-97PC-1545
by NASA
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A seven-year journey to the ringed planet Saturn begins
with the liftoff of a Titan IVB/Centaur carrying the
Cassini orbiter and its attached Huygens probe. Launch
occurred at 4:43 a.m. EDT, Oct. 15, from Launch Complex
40 on Cape Canaveral Air Station. After a 2.2-billion
mile journey that will include two swingbys of Venus and
one of Earth to gain additional velocity, the two-story
tall spacecraft will arrive at Saturn in July 2004. The
orbiter will circle the planet for four years, its
complement of 12 scientific instruments gathering data
about Saturn's atmosphere, rings and magnetosphere and
conducting closeup observations of the Saturnian moons.
Huygens, with a separate suite of six science
instruments, will separate from Cassini to fly on a
ballistic trajectory toward Titan, the only celestial
body besides Earth to have an atmosphere rich in
nitrogen. Scientists are eager to study further this
chemical similarity in hopes of learning more about the
origins of our own planet Earth. Huygens will provide the
first direct sampling of Titan's atmospheric chemistry
and the first detailed photographs of its surface. The
Cassini mission is an international effort involving
NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian
Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI). The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory manages the U.S. contribution to
the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science. The major
U.S. contractor is Lockheed Martin, which provided the
launch vehicle and upper stage, spacecraft propulsion
module and radioisotope thermoelectric generators that
will provide power for the spacecraft. The Titan
IV/Centaur is a U.S. Air Force launch vehicle, and launch
operations were managed by the 45th Space Wing
Date Published: 2009-09-30 06:02:20
Identifier: KSC-KSC-97PC-1545
Item Size: 213322
Media Type: image
# Topics
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/deta...
What -- Saturn
What -- Titan
What -- Cassini
What -- Huygens Probe
What -- Venus
What -- Earth
Where -- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
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