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The Huygens Probe System Design
Lebreton, J. -P.; Sollazzo, C.; Couzin, P. +5 more
The Huygens Probe is the ESA-provided element of the joint NASA/ESA Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and its largest moon Titan. Huygens is an entry probe designed to enter Titan's atmosphere and descend under parachute down to the surface. The Probe is carried to Titan on board the Cassini Saturn Orbiter. Huygens is dormant for 7.2 years, during…
Saturn's Rings: pre-Cassini Status and Mission Goals
Nicholson, P. D.; Spilker, L. J.; Porco, C. C. +8 more
Theoretical and observational progress in studies of Saturn's ring system since the mid-1980s is reviewed, focussing on advances in configuration and dynamics, composition and size distribution, dust and meteoroids, interactions of the rings with the planet and the magnetosphere, and relationships between the rings and various satellites. The Cass…
Touring the Saturnian System
Wolf, Aron A.
The Cassini mission to Saturn employs a Saturn orbiter and a Titan probe to conduct an intensive investigation of the Saturnian system. The orbiter flies a series of orbits, incorporating flybys of the Saturnian satellites, called the ‘satellite tour.’ During the tour, the gravitational fields of the satellites (mainly Titan) are used to modify an…
Cassini-Huygens Investigations of Satellite Surfaces and Interiors
Soderblom, Laurence A.; Lunine, Jonathan I.
The Saturnian system contains 18 known satellites ranging from 10 km to 2575 km in radius. In bulk properties and surface appearance these objects show less regularity than the sparser Jupiter system. The Galilean-sized moon Titan sports a dense atmosphere of nitrogen and methane which renders surface observations difficult, but also makes this mo…
An Introduction to the Design of the Cassini Spacecraft
Henry, Curt A.
In October of 1997 NASA launched its largest interplanetary spacecraft to date. The Cassini spacecraft will arrive at Saturn in July of 2004 and begin a four year tour of that planetary system. After the spacecraft arrives it will separate into an orbiter and a probe. The Huygens Probe, developed by the European Space Agency, will follow a ballist…
Touring the saturnian system: the atmospheres of titan and saturn
Owen, Tobias; Gautier, Daniel
This report follows the presentation originally given in the ESA Phase A Study for the Cassini Huygens Mission. The combination of the Huygens atmospheric probe into Titan's atmosphere with the Cassini orbiter allows for both in-situ and remote-sensing observations of Titan. This not only provides a rich harvest of data about Saturn's famous satel…
A two-Type Classification of Lasco Coronal Mass Ejection
Andrews, M. D.; Howard, R. A.
The causes and origins of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) remain among the outstanding questions in Space Physics. The observations of CMEs by the LASCO coronagraphs on SOHO suggest that there are two distinct types of CMEs. The two types of events can be most easily distinguished by examining height-time plots. The Type A (Acceleration) events prod…
Modulation of Cosmic Rays in the Heliosphere From Solar Minimum to Maximum: a Theoretical Perspective
Ferreira, S. E. S.; Potgieter, M. S.; Burger, R. A.
The modulation of galactic cosmic rays in the heliosphere seems to be dominated by four major mechanisms: convection, diffusion, drifts (gradient, curvature and current sheet), and adiabatic energy losses. In this regard the global structure of the solar wind, the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF), the current sheet (HCS), and that of the heliosph…
Ulysses' Second Orbit: Remarkably Different Solar Wind
McComas, D. J.; Goldstein, R.; Gosling, J. T. +1 more
By the time of the 34th ESLAB symposium, dedicated to the memory of John Simpson, Ulysses had nearly reached its peak southerly latitude in its second polar orbit. The global solar wind structure observed thus far in Ulysses' second orbit is remarkably different from that observed over its first orbit. In particular, Ulysses observed highly irregu…
Heliospheric and Interstellar Phenomena Deduced From Pickup ion Observations
Gloeckler, George; Geiss, Johannes
Pickup ions, created by ionization of slow moving atoms and molecules well inside the heliosphere, provide us with a new tool to probe remote regions in and beyond the heliosphere and to study injection and acceleration processes in the solar wind. Comprehensive and continuous measurements of H, He, C, N, O, Ne and other pickup ions, especially wi…