What is Cassini-Huygens?
Cassini is a robotic spacecraft that is scheduled to arrive at Saturn on July 1, 2004 Universal Time (June 30 in U.S. time zones), and to orbit the planet for four years. The Huygens Probe is attached to Cassini, but will separate from it in December, 2004, fly to Titan (Saturn’s largest moon), and descend through Titan’s atmosphere to its surface in January, 2005. The Cassini-Huygens mission is an international collaboration among three space agencies. The Cassini orbiter was built and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The European Space Agency (ESA) built the Huygens Probe. The Italian Space Agency provided Cassini’s high-gain antenna. Seventeen countries had contributed to the mission at the time of launch. More than 250 scientists worldwide are involved in studying the data coming in from the Saturn system. For further information, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.
