The Cassini spacecraft has successfully entered orbit around Saturn, after a seven year voyage. The planet is now the most distant from Earth to be orbited by a spacecraft.
"It feels awfully good to be in orbit around the Lord of the Rings" said Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Cassini successfully negotiated a gap between Saturn's rings, a moment that Jerry Jones, the navigation team chief, considered one of the most critical. "We'd done lot of work to make sure the path was clear, but until you come out the other side you don't know," he said.
Then, at 1937 PDT, mission control at JPL received the signal that the main engine had switched on. "Without that we'd have flown by, and Saturn would have given us a boost that would have thrown us out of the Solar System" said Jones.
"The thrust was a little high; but the spacecraft knew what to do, and must have measured it perfectly, because it cut off a minute early," he added.
The 95-minute burn put Cassini into a highly elliptical with a period of about 116 days. This is so close to the required course that an orbit correction originally planned for Saturday might not be needed.
After crossing the ring plane a second time, Cassini turned its main antenna to Earth for what the JPL team dub the "call home". This was successfully received at 2130 PDT. The spacecraft will now be able to send back pictures of the rings and other scientific data collected in its close encounter with Saturn.
The images should arrive later on Thursday, and may reveal previously unseen structures within the rings, giving clues to their mysterious origin.
The $3 billion US-European mission will then begin its planned four-year tour of Saturn and its system of moons. "There is going to be a huge leap in our understanding of the Saturnian system" says Elachi.
By Faye Lyshe
Thu Mar 20 14:43:08 GMT 2008
This technology is great and i love to see and hear about findings of our solar system and space BUT with the way things are on planet earth, seems like more attention and care should be focused on our home, instead of potentially messing up another planet. The greed and curiosity of man is slowly destroying our home and human kind.All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
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