Cassini a genuine human triumph

Analysis: Cassini a genuine human triumph


By Phil Berardelli
United Press International


Washington, DC, Jul. 1 (UPI) -- NASA's spectacular feat of placing the
Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, beginning a four-year
mission to explore the giant ringed planet and its 31 known moons,
ranks with the greatest achievements in human history and surpasses
even the stunning successes of the twin Mars rovers.

The spacecraft -- a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency -- entered orbit around Saturn at
12:12 a.m. ET Thursday, after traveling nearly 2.2 billion, circuitous
miles (3.5 billion kilometers) since its launch from Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station, Fla., on Oct. 15, 1997.

When flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., received a signal that Cassini had completed the
96-minute engine burn needed to place the spacecraft in the correct
orbit, they broke into cheers and tears of relief that their decades
of planning and operations -- and NASA's $3 billion investment -- were
rewarded.

"This is a tribute to the team at NASA and our partners ... to
accomplish this feat taking place 934 million miles (1.5 billion km)
away from Earth," said Ed Weiler, the agency's associate administrator
for space science, at NASA headquarters in Washington. "What
Cassini-Huygens will reveal during its tour of Saturn and its many
moons, including Titan, will astonish scientists and the public."

Robert T. Mitchell, program manager for Cassini-Huygens at JPL, said:
"We didn't expect anything less and couldn't have asked for anything
more from the spacecraft and the team. This speaks volumes to the
tremendous team that made it all happen."

Charles Elachi, JPL director and team leader on the radar instrument
onboard Cassini, said: "It feels awfully good to be in orbit around
the 'Lord of the Rings.' This is the result of 22 years of effort, of
commitment, of ingenuity, and that's what exploration is all about."

David Southwood, director of scientific programs for the European
Space Agency, said: "This was America's night. This was NASA doing it
right. They really gave those of us in Europe a challenge. We've got
six months to go until we land on Titan. We're just praying that
everything will go as well."

Julie Webster, Cassini-Huygens spacecraft team chief, said: "The
spacecraft has been an incredible joy to fly. We stand on the
shoulders of people who had 40 years of experience building and
designing spacecraft."

On rare occasions, the hype by a project's sponsors matches reality.
This is one such occasion.

Though hazards and potential malfunctions always loom whenever
spaceflight is involved, Cassini's successful arrival at Saturn
justifies the risk taken to get it there. Already, the spacecraft has
returned images of unprecedented detail of the planet's cloud tops,
taken from a distance of only about 12,000 miles (20,000 km).

Cassini also captured images of the rings from nearly point-blank
range, revealing incredible detail.

During the most dramatic moments of the mission so far, Cassini
plunged directly through the rings, entering a zone called,
ironically, the Cassini Gap, which scientists had predicted was devoid
of ring material, but no one knew for sure was empty. The tremendous
gamble paid off and Cassini, which as a precaution had turned its dish
antenna away from Earth and toward the ring gap, sent the signal
following the engine burn that it had survived the plunge.

In the coming years, the 6 ton, bus-sized spacecraft is scheduled to
fly close to Saturn 76 times and visit Titan, its largest moon, 45
times. It also will execute 52 close flybys of seven of the other
moons.

At the end of this year, the Huygens probe, which has piggy-backed
aboard Cassini, will attempt the closest view of Titan, the most
distant object from Earth yet contacted by a probe. Titan, which is
bigger than either Mercury or Pluto, possesses an atmosphere that is
denser than Earth's at its surface, and might harbor enough

Everything -- everything -- Cassini does represents humanity reaching
out, literally, across a billion miles of space to probe perhaps the
most spectacular object in the solar system.

Saturn, sixth planet from the sun, is the second largest, after
Jupiter. But its magnificent rings, which stretch 185,000 miles
(300,000 km) in diameter -- or more than two-thirds of the distance
between Earth and the moon -- represent a miniature model of the disc
of gas and dust that surrounded the early sun and eventually formed
the planets. Cassini is designed to accumulate detailed knowledge of
the dynamics of interactions among both those rings and the numerous
moons that scientists think will provide valuable data to help
understand how the solar system and its constituent planets evolved.

Beyond the immediate gains in data, however, Cassini represents a
triumphant revisit to a planetary system that has dazzled earthbound
observers three times before, when Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2
flew by on their way to destinations beyond. Each one of those mission
gathered data, but posed many questions for planetary scientists that
could not be answered by transitory probes.

As JPL's Kevin Grazier said, "Now, we go back with a mission to answer
many of those questions."

More than that, Cassini, along with NASA's twin Martian rovers, Spirit
and Opportunity, and its Stardust probe -- which recently captured
samples of the dust of comet Wild 2 -- compose the beginning of what
figures to be a robotic exploration of the solar system that will
continue for many years, to be supplemented -- finally -- by the
return of humans to the moon sometime in the next decade.

--

Phil Berardelli is UPI's Science & Technology Editor. E-mail

I second the sentiment -- well done!

I second the sentiment -- well done!