Comments on: Moons vs Rings

By: Bruce Moomaw

Bruce Moomaw — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:27:31 +0000

Correction: that third URL should be

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/may_07_meeting/presentations/titan_flagship_study_b.pdf

By: Bruce Moomaw

Bruce Moomaw — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:26:23 +0000

Yeah, mission manager Bob Mitchell told me explicitly some time ago that aerobraking into orbitr around Titan is just totally impossible for Cassini — not only would it require far more remaining fuel than it will have, but its magnetometer boom would throw it into a dangerous tumble every time it brushed through Titan’s atmosphere. A pity; scientifically, that would be the perfect finish-up for this mission.

Let me recommend that you take a look at the most recent analyses of the best follow-up missions to Titan and Enceladus at

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/TitanEnceladusBillionDollarBox.pdf

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/may_07_meeting/presentations/titan_flagship_studya.pdf

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/pss/presentations/niebur_flagship.pdf

By: JC

JC — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:22:05 +0000

I don’t think going into orbit around Titan is energetically feasible. There are also what are called “planetary protection” concerns: Cassini was not built to be a biologically sterile spacecraft, so there may be concerns about putting it in an orbit where it might someday crash onto either Titan or Enceladus. dfk: I’m with you on that one. The only aspect of Saturn studies that can be truly decimated is study of the rings by going into an equatorial orbit. Inclined orbits offer something for everyone. We’ll see how it plays out over the next year or two.

By: dfk

dfk — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:57:48 +0000

You can still observe Saturn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’s atmosphere from an inclined orbit, even low latitude atmosphere.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:08:49 +0000

Cassini should be aerobraked into orbit around Titan to radar-map the surface. That\’s where the real action is.

By: JC

JC — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:52:19 +0000

It is indeed possible to visit moons while on an inclined orbit. One problems is that inclined orbits generally require more spacecraft fuel to keep them stable than equatorial orbits, although there is a particular inclination where most perturbations to the orbit cancel.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:10:07 +0000

Too bad it\’s not the good ol\’ days when NASA sent two probes per mission. Wouldn\’t it be possible to set Cassini into an inclined orbit with some resonance with the orbit of Dione or Tethys? Near periapsis there would be two crossings of the orbital plane.

If memory serves, there\’s only one 16000km pass of Tethys left, and only one for Dione in the extended mission.