Transcript Galileo, Cassini-Huygens, and other current space missions

Fall 1999 RITTI Conference
Mark M. Gadbois
RI Solar System Ambassador
1999 RITTI Conference
Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn
 Galileo’s continued mission at Jupiter
 Solar System Ambassador Program
 Student involvement
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Cassini-Huygens
Cassini
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The mission is named in honor of the
seventeenth-century, French-Italian
astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini,
who discovered the prominent gap in
Saturn's main rings, as well as the icy
moons Iapetus, Rhea, Dione, and
Tethys.
Huygens
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The ESA Titan probe is named in honor
of the Dutch scientist Christiaan
Huygens, who discovered Titan in 1655,
followed in 1659 by his rediscovery of a
ring system surrounding the planet.
Huygens was also famous for his
invention of the pendulum clock, the
first accurate timekeeping device.
Cassini-Huygens Mission
Objectives (sic)
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to return information about the Saturn
system; its rings, moons,
magnetosphere, and last but not least,
the planet itself.
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to have the spacecraft captured in orbit
about Saturn and provide the
opportunity for an on-site observatory
to map the vast realm for many years
Small Miracles
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900,000,000 miles (1,430,000,000
kilometers)
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6.7 years flight time
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“gravity assists”
Did you know...? When the
Voyager spacecraft flew by
Jupiter, it gained 16 kilometers
(10 miles) per second of
speed at a cost of slowing
down Jupiter by 1 foot every
trillion years!
The Gas Giant
Arrival
Scheduled to arrive on July 1, 2004
 Deployment of the Huygens probe to
Titan is scheduled for November 5,
2004 with the probe scheduled to enter
the atmosphere of Titan on Nov 27.
 Why go?
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More information...
Cassini-Huygens models (1/37th and
1/40th scale)
www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/model
 Cassini Home Page www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini
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Galileo
G.E.M.
Galileo Europa Mission
Fortune favors the bold.
-Virgil
The Hurdles
Challenger explosion in Jan 86
grounded the shuttle fleet until
problems were fixed.
 Centaur rocket forbidden to be carried
aboard a shuttle
 VEEGA gravity assist
 Flying closer to the sun than originally
designed
 Aging, navigational hardware
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The bonus
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Venus
Earth/Moon
Asteroid 951
(Gaspra)
Asteroid 243 (Ida) &
Dactyl
Shoemaker-Levy 9
History
Launched from Atlantis on Oct 18, 1989
 Primary orbit achieved Dec 95
 Two year mission ended (with funding)
in Dec 97
 New funding achieved to continue
mission until Dec 99
 Flybys of Europa and Io
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A new focus
Concentrating on the unique moon
Europa, the second portion of the
Galileo mission has discovered new &
exciting possibilities.
 Our first views of Europa, through
Pioneer 10 and 11 gave fuzzy views of
yellow plains, mottled areas, & cracks thousands of kilometers long
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Galileo images
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Small blocks of crust
float over an
invisible sea
Tidal flexing
Volcanic ice flows
Liquid water ocean?
Life?
Key to Life
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Very High Resolution
Image of Icy Cliffs
on Europa and
Similar Scales on
Earth (Providence,
RI)
Key to Life
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"The combination of interior heat, liquid
water, and infall of organic material
from comets and meteorites means that
Europa has the key ingredients for life,"
Head says. "Europa, like Mars and the
Saturn moon Titan, is a laboratory for
the study of conditions that might have
led to the formation of life in the solar
system."
Io
The most volcanically active body in the
solar system.
 Some of its features change within
weeks
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Chemical & Physical activity
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No impact craters
Sulfur and frozen
sulfer dioxide
Iron core
Sodium gas and
sulfur ions in the
torus of Io’s orbit
Comparison
While Olympus Mons (Mars) may be the
largest volcano in the solar system, it
has been dormant for hundreds of
thousands of years
 Io, launches streams of fluidic sulfurs
and silicates over 60 km from the
surface. The particles freeze and fall
back to the surface as a sulfur dioxide
snow
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Coming soon...
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Galileo flyby of Io on Nov 26th at a
distance of about 300 km as compared
to the Oct 11 flyby at 611 km
Solar System Ambassador
Jet Propulsions Laboratory
Community Education and
Outreach
Duties
Four presentations to the public on
current space missions
 ……
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Benefits
Stuff
 More stuff
 More free stuff
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How to apply...
www.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador
 17 page applications
 not a cyclical process
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Student involvement
Three presentations
 PowerPoint
 Parental invitations
 Extra Credit assignments
 video tape
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Curriculum integration
Public speaking
 Technology
 Current events
 Nature of the universe
 Recognition of bias in data
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