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Cassini–Huygens (/ k ə ˈ s iː n i ˈ h ɔɪ ɡ ən z / kə-SEE-nee HOY-gənz), commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites.
15 paź 1997 · It became the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, beginning a mission that yielded troves of new insights over more than a decade. The Saturnian system proved to be rich ground for exploration and discoveries, and Cassini's science findings changed the course of future planetary exploration.
NASA extended the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons through 2017. This enabled Cassini to observe seasonal changes in the Saturn system over almost half of Saturn's nearly 30-year orbit around the sun.
In April 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft began writing the final, thrilling chapter of its remarkable 20-year-long story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Every week, Cassini dived through the approximately 1,200-mile-wide (2,000-kilometer-wide) gap between Saturn and its rings.
15 paź 1997 · Cassini completes its extended mission (Cassini Equinox Mission) and begins its second mission extension (Cassini Solstice Mission), which goes through 2017 and will make the first observations of a complete seasonal period for Saturn and its moons.
Cassini carried a passenger to the Saturn system, the European Huygens probe—the first human-made object to land on a world in the distant outer solar system. After 20 years in space — 13 of those years exploring Saturn — Cassini exhausted its fuel supply.
1 paź 2024 · The Equinox mission allowed for observations of Saturn's rings as the sun lit them edge-on, revealing a host of never-before-seen insights into the rings' structure. In 2010, the spacecraft began a second, seven-year-long, extended mission called the Cassini Solstice Mission.
