Some Cassini basics Let me start by saying that I think Cassini is an incredibly cool mission. Cassini launched in 1997 and reached Saturn's orbit in 2004. For people who don't work in the space science exploration world, that might seem like a really long time, but that is how long it takes to get places in our vast solar system (using current technology). Before it launched in 1997, engineers, scientists, technicians, managers, planners, and many others all spent countless hours over what was probably 6-10 years (or more!) developing and building the Cassini spacecraft and its science instruments. Finally it launched. Then everyone waited for seven YEARS before it even got to Saturn. There were still plenty of planning and commissioning activities (checkouts and calibration of everything on the spacecraft) to be done during those seven years, but that's still a long time to wait. Cassini's original prime mission was for four years, but like most missions that get sent way out into the solar system, it was extended twice. For the most recent seven-year extension granted in 2010, they announced the plan to end Cassini's mission by diving into the planet of Saturn (maybe this was the plan all along - I didn't look into it that closely). The main goal of this is to protect Saturn's moons from any possible contamination from the spacecraft because of the possibility that some of Saturn's moons might harbor life. If you are interested in learning more about how missions to other planets and moons try to prevent contaminating it - do a web search for "planetary protection." The whole point is that if we were to discover life somewhere else, we want to be sure we are not "self-discovering" something that actually just came from Earth. Cassini is actually officially the Cassini-Huygen's Mission, which was a cooperative mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The Cassini spacecraft carried the European Huygens probe to the Saturn system. The Huygens probe LANDED on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005, which is an incredible feat and a mind-blowing mission in its own right.
Final Thoughts on Cassini's Final Moments As someone who works at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) on similar missions, I like to put Cassini's incredible journey in the context of the greater solar system exploration that we undertake. If a seven-year cruise to Saturn sounds long then think about how long it felt for the 9.5 years it took New Horizons to reach Pluto! The life of New Horizons will be more similar to the Voyager missions as it continues to go farther out in our Solar System and studies Kuiper Belt objects. MESSENGER is an incredible mission that orbited Mercury and eventually met a similar demise as Cassini when we deliberately crashed it into Mercury's surface. The MESSENGER team came up with creative and unprecedented maneuvers to keep the spacecraft flying for as long as possible as close to the surface as they could. The teams on all of these incredible NASA missions are very innovative during extended mission to squeeze as much science as possible out the science instruments.
Eventually Parker Solar Probe, the NASA mission that I am working on currently, will also reach a similar end as MESSENGER and Cassini. It will orbit closer and closer to the sun until it finally dies a rapid, fiery death in the heart of our solar system. However that is still a long way off since we do not even launch until July 2018. As a fun gesture in honor of Cassini's Grand Finale, I drew the cartoon below to capture the Parker Solar Probe's reaction to learning about today's historic event!
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Hi everyone! I've neglected this blog for far too long so I figured it was time to post again. If you read the last post back in January you know that STO2 did not launch last season. They are trying again this season, but a different team is going down this time. The new team is en-route to the Ice right now! I am not sure if anyone will be posting a blog or updates on the mission this time around, but eventually the launch will be covered here: http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/
Work-wise I am now deep into the development of NASA's Solar Probe Plus mission that we are building at APL. We are very busy every week putting the spacecraft together and integrating all of the pieces. We are on track to launch in July 2018 so stay tuned for more on that too! The official Solar Probe Plus website is here: http://solarprobe.jhuapl.edu/ Unfortunately the weather never cooperated again this season so the Antarctica Balloon Campaign for the austral summer of 2015/2016 has officially ended. This has actually never happened before - usually they launch all of the missions in a season. NASA and NSF have decided to let us try again next season. So for the past few days we have been busy taking everything apart again and securing it in our payload building to spend the long cold winter here. There are some things we have packed to ship home since they will not survive the extreme cold. For the most part however, we are keeping the gondola and the instrument here. We do not know who will be on the team that comes back next season at this point, but they will put it all back together and try to launch in December. So it was a very disappointing end to this launch season. At least GRIPS was able to launch and seems to be having a very successful mission this season.
In other news, the U.S. Coast Guard's ice breaker ship arrived last week to break up a path for the resupply cargo vessel and fuel ships to come in. Right now the whole town is in the middle of "vessel offload" so there has been an influx of people arriving here to help with that. There are forklifts and sea containers all over the place as they spend the next week or so getting all the supplies into town and loading the ship up with cargo going back to the North. The GRIPS mission has finally launched! The very marginal weather conditions held out just long enough for them to get off the ground. Congratulations to the GRIPS team! You can follow their progress here: http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/payloads.htm
We are waiting to see what the weather holds for us tomorrow and in the coming days. This has been uncharacteristically bad weather here this season. This is the latest they have ever launched a balloon. We are running out of time before the wind circulation in the stratosphere starts to deteriorate, which means there is a chance we won't launch at all. Everyone is still holding out hope that we will make it off the ground this season though!
Kate Stambaugh is officially on the Ice!
Extreme Cold Weather gear is provided. USAP provides everyone with the Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear that is necessary for the cold conditions we will be in. This includes:
Odds and ends that are really important.
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