Timeline of Cassini–Huygens
Timeline of notable events in the history of the Cassini–Huygens mission / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article provides a timeline of the Cassini–Huygens mission (commonly called Cassini). Cassini was a collaboration between the United States' NASA, the European Space Agency ("ESA"), and the Italian Space Agency ("ASI") to send a probe to study the Saturnian system, including the planet, its rings, and its natural satellites.[1][2] The Flagship-class uncrewed robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini probe, and ESA's Huygens lander which was designed to land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit. The craft were named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.
Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on 15 October 1997, Cassini had a nearly 20-year life span, with 13 of these years spent orbiting Saturn.[3] The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and June 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000). The probes entered orbit on 1 July 2004, and the mission ended on 15 September 2017, when Cassini flew into Saturn's upper atmosphere[4][5] in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, some of which have active environments that could potentially bear life.[6][7] The mission is widely perceived to have succeeded beyond expectations. Cassini-Huygens has been described by NASA's Planetary Science Division Director as a "mission of firsts",[8] that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturnian system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.
Cassini's primary mission lasted for four years, from June 2004 to May 2008. The mission was extended for another two years until September 2010, under the name of Cassini Equinox Mission. The mission was extended a second and final time with the Cassini Solstice Mission, lasting until the spacecraft's destruction in September 2017.
The Huygens module traveled with Cassini until its separation from the probe on 25 December 2004; it was successfully landed by parachute on Titan on 14 January 2005. It successfully 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 our own.
At the end of its mission, the Cassini spacecraft executed the "Grand Finale" of its mission: several risky passes through the gaps between Saturn and Saturn's inner rings.[1][2] The purpose of this phase was to maximize Cassini's scientific outcome before the spacecraft was destroyed.[9] The atmospheric entry of Cassini effectively ended the mission, although data analysis and production is still ongoing.