Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn

By Thomas H. Maugh II and Eric D. Tytell
Los Angeles Times

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Related stories Spacecraft prepares to orbit Saturn

"We have burn complete," mission communicator Todd Barber said to cheers and high fives. "Welcome to Saturn."

For a tense 96 minutes, engineers had listened to the Doppler change in a tiny radio signal from Cassini indicating that its rocket was firing and slowing the craft, which had taken seven years to complete its 2.2 billion-mile journey to Saturn.

The signal finally stabilized, on schedule, at 9:12 p.m., a sign that the rocket had fired for its full allotted time, slowing the craft just enough for it to be captured by the gravity of the massive planet.

Cheers and handshakes erupted again minutes later, at 9:30 p.m., when Cassini pointed its large antenna toward Earth and sent back a "blast of data" indicating that all was well, Barber said. The craft then turned its antenna away once more as it snapped a hurried series of photographs of Saturn's rings during its closest approach to them.

"We got it," a voice crackled over the control room's loud speakers.

The arrival of the craft at Saturn represents the end of an era. Cassini's $3.3 billion cost, massive size and payload of 18 scientific instruments set it apart from recent interplanetary missions launched under the "faster, better, cheaper" slogan.

With the new emphasis at NASA on a return to the moon and a manned mission to Mars, it seems unlikely that there will be another mission to Saturn in the next few decades, and almost certain that none will be so complex.

At least 1,500 scientists and engineers at JPL worked full- or part-time during the early 1990s to bring Cassini to yesterday's successful rendezvous.

At 7:11 p.m. yesterday, the craft hurtled through the gap between Saturn's F and G rings at a speed of 27,000 mph. About 15 minutes later, the craft began its 96-minute burn.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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