Backgrounder: Major Facts of Cassini Space Probe of Saturn

Backgrounder: Major facts of Cassini space probe of Saturn

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) — The US-European spacecraft Cassini became the first man-made object that orbits Saturn late Wednesday for a four-year study of the planet and its rings that can reportedly help understand how planets of the solar system evolved.

Following are major facts about the mission:

CASSINI:

Cassini, named after 17th century Italian-French astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini, who discovered four Saturn moons, was sent to explore Saturn, its rings, magnetic fields and icy moons.

Power: Nuclear powered

Launch: Oct. 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral, Florida

Saturn arrival: June 30, 2004 PT (July 1 GMT)

Flight distance to Saturn: 3.5 billion km

Primary mission: four years

Cost: 3.27 billion US dollars, including 2.6 billion dollars from the United States and 660 million dollars from Europe

Size: 6.6 meters long and 3.9 meters wide

Weight: 5,712 kg.

Instruments: 18 in total, including cameras, ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, radar, plasma spectrometer, infrared spectrometer, ion and neutral mass spectrometer, magnetometer, cosmic dust analyzer

Development partners: the US NASA, the European Space Agency, the Italian space agency Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

Personnel and countries involved: abut 260 scientists from 18 countries

HUYGENS PROBE:

The Huygens probe will explore Titan, Saturn’s largest moon believed to have a “pre-biotic” environment. The craft, developed by the European Space Agency, is named after 17th century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.

Size: about 2.7 meters in diameter and 317 kg in weight

Release from Cassini: Dec. 24, 2004

Titan landing: Jan. 14, 2005

Instruments: imaging equipment, Doppler wind experiment, gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer, atmospheric structure instrument, surface science package

SATURN FACTS:

6th planet from the sun

Distance from sun: 1.43 billion km or about 10 times as far as Earth and twice as far as Jupiter

Number of moons: 31 known

Number of rings: seven

Saturn year (time to orbit around the sun): 29.42 Earth years

Saturn day (time to rotate): about 10.5 hours