The Cassini–Huygens space-research mission, commonly called Cassini, involved a collaboration among NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the Saturn planet and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004. The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000). The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini's trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft. The mission was successful beyond expectations – NASA's Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Green, described Cassini-Huygens as a "mission of firsts" that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.

Cassini's planners originally scheduled a mission of four years, from June 2004 to May 2008. The mission was extended for another two years until September 2010, branded the Cassini Equinox Mission. The mission was extended a second and final time with the Cassini Solstice Mission, lasting another seven years until September 15, 2017, on which date Cassini was de-orbited to burn up in Saturn's upper atmosphere.

The Huygens module traveled with Cassini until its separation from the probe on December 25, 2004; Huygens landed by parachute on Titan on January 14, 2005. It returned data to Earth for around 90 minutes, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System and the first landing on a moon other than Earth's Moon.

At the end of its mission, the Cassini spacecraft executed its "Grand Finale": a number of risky passes through the gaps between Saturn and Saturn's inner rings. This phase aimed to maximize Cassini's scientific outcome before the spacecraft was intentionally destroyed. The atmospheric entry of Cassini ended the mission, but analysis of the returned data will continue for many years.

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  • LeninsRage [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Listening to my antivax co-workers talk about all the excuses they plan to marshal for refusing the shot it really strikes me anew of the innate narcissistic individualism of conspiracy theory. Never once brought up by any of them is some sense that they have a social responsibility to others to mitigate the spread of plague. Theyre only obsessed with how the secret arcane truths they possess about the real nature of the vaccine can protect their health by refusing it. Its bewildering hearing them act concerned about "all the people who've died from the vaccine" when there's a literal plague that has killed almost five million people still raging.

    Neoliberal social engineering has not only rendered literally unthinkable the very idea of collective action, but also the notion of having a social responsibility toward anyone other than yourself. No wonder retail clerks are getting fucking shot for asking people to wear masks.

    • Grownbravy [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Never once brought up by any of them is some sense that they have a social responsibility to others to mitigate the spread of plague.

      To be american is to stand alone drowning in self-importance

    • LeninWeave [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Neoliberal social engineering has not only rendered literally unthinkable the very idea of collective action, but also the notion of having a social responsibility toward anyone other than yourself.

      american_covid_response.svg

      And :some-controversy: turns out a sense of collectiveness :diaz-canel-troll: helps tackle big crises :uncle-ho-2: