Cassini-Huygens Mission

Some pictures:

Interplanetary Trajectory (PDF)	Tour at Saturn, view A	Tour at Saturn, view B

The Cassini Dust Detector (CDA) is intended to provide direct observations of dust grains with masses between 10e-19 and 10e-9 kg in interplanetary space and in the Jovian and Saturnian systems, to investigate their physical, chemical and dynamical properties as functions of the distances to the sun, to Jupiter and to Saturn and its satellites and rings, to study their interaction with the Saturnian rings, satellites and magnetosphere.

Chemical composition of interplanetary meteoroids will be compared with asteroidal and cometary dust, as well as with Saturnian dust, ejecta from rings and satellites. Ring and satellites phenomena which might be effects of meteoroid impacts will be compared with the interplanetary dust environment.

Electrical charges of particulate matter in the magnetosphere and its consequences will be studied; e.g. the effects of the ambient plasma and the magnetic field on the trajectories of dust particles as well as fragmentation of particles due to electrostatic disruption.

The investigation will be performed with an instrument that measures the mass, composition, electric charge, speed, and flight direction of individual dust particles. It is a highly reliable and versatile instrument with a mass sensitivity 10e6 times higher than that of the Pioneer 10 and 11 dust detectors which measured dust in the Saturnian system.

The Cosmic-Dust-Analyzer, CDA, has significant inheritance from former space instrumentation developed for the VEGA, Giotto, Galileo, and Ulysses missions. It will reliably measure impacts from as low as 1 impact per month up to 10.000 impacts per second. The instrument weighs 17 kg and consumes 12 Watts, the integrated time-of-flight mass spectrometer has a mass resolution of up to 50. The data transmission rate is 524 bits/s.

CDA Scientific Objectives

Link to the Cassini-Project

Where is Cassini Now?