Chapter 2
Cassini-Huygens
A joint mission between NASA, ESA and Italy, explored Saturn's system for almost 15 years.
Launch mass: 5,712 kg (12,593 lb)
Power: ~885 watts (BOL); ~670 watts (2010); ~663 watts (EOM/2017)
Rocket: Titan IV/Centaur
Orbital insertion: July 1, 2004, 02:48 UTC
Launch: Oct 15, 1997
EOM: Sep 15, 2017
Dry mass: 2,523 kg (5,562 lb)
Instruments:
Launch and Cruise Phase
15 October 1997 01:43 Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) – Cassini launched at 08:43 UTC inside Titan IVB/Centaur rocket.
Centaur Upper Stage sends the spacecraft into its journey
3 December 1998 22:06 PST – Cassini fired its main rocket engine for 90 minutes, setting the spacecraft on course for its second Venus flyby in 1999. The engine burn slowed the spacecraft by close to 450 meters per second (about 1,006 miles per hour) relative to the Sun. Cassini's speed went from 67,860 kilometers per hour (42,168 miles per hour) at the start of the maneuver to 66,240 kilometers per hour (41,161 miles per hour) at the end of the engine firing.
24 June 1999 13:30 PDT – Gravity-assisted flyby of Venus at 623 km.[12]
18 August 1999 03:28 UTC − Gravity-assisted flyby of Earth. An hour 20 minutes before closest approach, Cassini made the closest approach to the Moon at 377,000 km, and took a series of calibration images. The spacecraft flew past Earth at a distance of 1,171 kilometers (728 mi), passing most closely above the eastern South Pacific at 23.5°S 128.5°W. Cassini received a 5.5-kilometer-per-second (about 12,000-mile-per-hour) boost in velocity.
30 December 2000 10:05 UTC − Gravity-assisted flyby of Jupiter. Cassini was at its closest point (9.7 million kilometres, 137 Jovian radii) to Jupiter at this date, and performed many scientific measurements.[15] It also produced the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced (seen on the right); the smallest visible features are approximately 60 km (37 mi) across.
Primary Mission Phase
18 May 2004 – Cassini entered the Saturn system. The gravitational pull of Saturn began to overtake the influence of the Sun.
1 July 2004 – The Saturn Orbit Insertion burn was successfully executed. At 7:11 p.m. PDT (10:11 p.m. EDT), Cassini crossed the ring plane between Saturn's F and G rings. Its antenna was oriented forward acting as a shield against small ring particles. At 7:36 p.m. PDT (10:36 p.m. EDT), the spacecraft began a critical 96-minute main engine burn to cut its velocity by 626 meters per second and permit a 0.02 x 9 million kilometer Saturn orbit. Right after that burn, pictures of the rings were taken and sent back to mission scientist as the spacecraft approached within 19,980 kilometers (12,400 miles) from the cloud tops.
The Spacecraft maneuvers to intercept Titan
25 December 2004 – Huygens probe separated from Cassini orbiter at 02:00 UTC.
27 December – NASA published a picture of Huygens taken from Cassini two days after release. It reported that the analysis of that picture shows that the probe is on the correct course within the expected error range. These checks were necessary in order to place the orbiter in the correct orientation to receive the data from the probe when it enters Titan's atmosphere.
28 December 2004 – OTM-10 was executed at 03:00 UTC in Spacecraft Event Time. This maneuver, also called the Orbit Deflection Maneuver (ODM), took Cassini off of a Titan-impacting trajectory and on to a flyby trajectory with the required altitude to receive data from the Huygens probe as it plunges into Titan.
14 January 2005 – Huygens entered Titan's atmosphere at 09:06 UTC and had landed softly on its surface about two hours later. This was confirmed by the reception of the carrier wave emitted by the probe during its descent and touchdown. At 16:19 UTC the Cassini orbiter started to relay to Earth the scientific data received from the probe. The first picture was released at 19:45 UTC, showing a view from about 16 km above the surface. A second picture taken from the probe at rest on the surface was released a short time later. Analysis of the data is ongoing.
Heat Shield Ejected - Parachute Opened
Cassini records and then relays all data collected by Huygens
Saturn in the background (artist concept)
Touch down
First human made object to land in the outer solar system
3 May 2005 – Cassini begins Radio occultation experiments on Saturn's Rings, to determine ring particle size distribution, on the scale of centimeters.
10 May 2005 – At the beginning of a period of focussed observation of the ring system of Saturn, slated to take until September, mission scientists announced the discovery of a new moon in the "Keeler gap" inside the "A" ring. Provisionally named S/2005 S 1 and later named Daphnis, it was first seen in a time-lapse sequence of images taken on 1 May. Imaging scientists had predicted the new moon's presence and its orbital distance from Saturn after last July's sighting of a set of peculiar spiky and wispy features in the Keeler gap's outer edge.
Equinox and Solstice Phase
June - October 2009 – Cassini observed Saturn during its equinox, or the time of Saturn's year where the sun is directly over its equator.
On 3 February 2010, NASA announced that a second mission extension until May 2017, a few months past Saturn's summer solstice, had been funded. The schedule included an additional 155 orbits, with 54 flybys of Titan, 11 of Enceladus ,22 of Rhea, and 3 of Dione. One of the flybys of Titan dipped below the ionosphere.
Grand Finale
On 15 September 2017, Cassini was deliberately disposed of via a controlled fall into Saturn's atmosphere, ending its nearly two-decade-long mission.
The last signal was received at 04:55:46 PDT.
Sources:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/timeline/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Cassini–Huygens
Thanks to @akronfor his awesome Cassini-Huygens rendition and @CobaltWolf for his excellent Titan/Centaur launcher
Adds RealPlume configs for all engines and two new parts modified from the revamped (required) SDHI service module system get it here SDHI SMS created by Robin "sumghai" Chang.
