What kind of journey is Cassini-Huygens making?
Cassini-Huygens was launched on a Titan IV-B/Centaur launch vehicle on 15 October 1997 from Cape Canaveral, USA. The large Cassini-Huygens spacecraft used four gravity-assist swing-by manoeuvres. It looped around the Sun twice. On the first loop it flew close behind Venus in its solar orbit, where it ‘stole’ some of the planet’s orbital momentum in 1998. The next orbit provided a second fly-by of Venus in 1999, and one of Earth later in 1999. Given these three gravity assist boosts, Cassini-Huygens finally had enough orbital momentum to reach the outer Solar System. One last gravity assist from Jupiter in 2000 gave Cassini-Huygens the final thrust of energy it needed to project itself all the way to Saturn. The mission arrives at Saturn in July 2004. In December 2004, the Huygens probe is ejected on its 22-day cruise to Titan.
