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Cassini uvis observations of Saturns rings
Colwell, Joshua E.; Esposito, Larry W.; McClintock, William E.
The Cassini Ultra-violet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) is part of the remote sensing payload of the Cassini Orbiter spacecraft. Its science objectives include investigation of the chemistry, clouds, and energy balance of the Titan and Saturn atmospheres ; neutrals in the magnetosphere ; D/H ratio for Titan and Saturn ; and structure and evolution of…
Cassini as a heliospheric probe - the potential of pick-up ion measurements during its cruise phase
Fichtner, H.; Mall, U.; Hamilton, D. C. +2 more
Measurements of the spatial distributions of pick-up ions can be utilized to infer important information about the structure of the heliosphere. First, a determination of the symmetry axis of flux distributions of pick-up ions not experiencing any significant filtration of their neutral parent atoms in the heliospheric interface represents a new m…
Imaging Saturns dust rings using energetic neutral atoms
Krimigis, S. M.; Mitchell, D. G.; Roelof, E. C. +3 more
The intense populations of magnetically trap- ped, energetic charged particles that constitute the radiation belts of Saturn's inner magnetosphere are slowly transported towards the planet by radial diffusion processes. Many of these energetic particles interact with the rings of Saturn and ultimately are lost to the magnetospheric system. Energet…
The Cassini-Huygens SSP refractometer : ref
Geake, J. E.; Mill, C. S.
The refractometer (REF) in the Huygens probe Surface Science Package (SSP) is a linear critical-angle refractometer ; it covers the refractive index range 1.2500-1.4500 with a discrimination of 0.0005, giving an accuracy of about 0.5% in the relative abundance of methane and ethane in the expected mixture on the possibly liquid surface of Titan. L…
An Italian tracking station for Cassini
Ambrosini, R.; Grueff, G.
We present a feasibility study for a 64 m fully steerable parabolic radiotelescope capable of high efficiency operation at frequencies up to 100 GHz. If funds are made available, and construction rapidly started, the antenna would be available in time to be used as a tracking station for the Cassini radio science experiments.
The microwave sensing in the Cassini Mission : the radar
Johnson, W. T. K.; Borgarelli, L.; Im, E. +1 more
The spacecraft of Cassini Mission has been launched towards Saturn on October 1997 to study the physical structure and chemical composition of Saturn as well as all its moons. To this end many instruments have been mounted on the spacecraft ; one of these is the Cassini Radar. Cassini Mission is a cooperative mission between NASA (National Aeronau…
Cassini radar : system concept and simulation results
Orosei, R.; Picardi, G.; Seu, R. +1 more
The Cassini mission is an international venture, involving NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), for the investigation of the Saturn system and, in particular, Titan. The Cassini radar will be able to see through Titan's thick, optically opaque atmosphere, allowing us to better understand the composition and the…
Atmospheric studies with spectro-imaging : prospects for the vims experiment on Cassini
Bellucci, Giancarlo; Bellini, Barbara; Formisano, Vittoria
Spectroscopic observations of Jupiter and Saturn are here reported to show the possible applications to the future data acquired by the instrument VIMS ( Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) on board of the Cassini Mission. The following images and spectra have been acquired by a similar instrument called VNIR ( Visible and Near Infrared Spe…
Doppler receiver for Cassini radio science experiments
Comoretto, G.
The Ka band tracking capability of the Cassini spacecraft allows for greater accuracy in most Radio Science experiments, but can be used only with the Goldstone DSN complex, i.e. for one third of the total time. A digital receiver has been designed to allow receiving the Ka band signal from a generic VLBI antenna. The receiver interfaces with the …
Cassini Huygens mission : the exploration of the Saturn system. Radio science experiments : Radio Frequency Instrument Subsystem
Perrot, Bruno; Giordani, Roberto
Many of the Cassini radio science experiments will require very stable microwave signals from the ground station that are transponded phase coherently on board the spacecraft. The Radio Frequency Instrument Subsystem is designed to provide this latter capability with high performance downlink signals at S-band and Ka-band. The signal level and pha…