Woo Hoo! Thru the rings of Saturn at 50,000 kph

[Squink]

At 7:11 pm Pacific Daylight Time, flying at over 50,000 kilometers per hour, Cassini has successfully completed its ascending passage through the rings of Saturn. With its high-gain antenna pointing the way and shielding the spacecraft from rock and dust particles, the spacecraft flew successfully between the sparse F and G rings. The first signal from the spacecraft confirming the successful passage was received at 7:30 pm, when the low gain antenna was pointed towards the Earth.

Spacecraft Passes Successfully through Saturn’s Rings

[Hal_Briston]

A conversation from earlier today:

Me: Yeah, Cassini is gonna be going through Saturn’s rings today. Gonna be tricky, maneuvering through all the debris.

Co-worker: Well, why didn’t they just fly above or below it, then?

:smack:

Yeah, that’d be a great way to gather data about the rings. :rolleyes:

[Thaumaturge]

Heh, the real reason that they had to fly through the rings is because the rings are tilted to the path of the spacecraft.

I’m they would have rather avoided the rings , since the risk of damage is high, but the orbital mechanics pretty much required the pass.

[Sam_Stone]

Awesome.

So what does the orbit look like now? I’m guessing it’s a parabola, and will eventually be circularized outside the ring system? I read that the insertion point was the closest Cassini will get to the rings.

[Squink]

@Sam Stone

Awesome.
So what does the orbit look like now? I’m guessing it’s a parabola, and will eventually be circularized outside the ring system?

More of an elongated ellipse. They’re using the planet to reduce Cassini’s velocity in a reverse slingshot manuver, so they have to get close.

There’s lots of good information, and pix, at Cassini-Huygens Home.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

Headline: Cassini probes Saturn; next stop: Uranus.

[Cervaise]

That is one double-barreled bastard of a cool orbital maneuver.