The Cassini mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where the orbiter was designed and assembled. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. Development of the Huygens Titan probe was managed by the European Space Technology and Research Center, whose prime contractor for the probe is Alcatel in France. Equipment and instruments for the probe were supplied from many countries, including the United States. The Cassini program is a 19-year endeavor; the program received a new start from the U.S. Congress in 1990, and the prime mission extends through July 2008.
The Cassini orbiter and its instruments represent a $1.422 billion investment by NASA. The agency has put a total of $710 million to support the cruise and orbital operations phase of the mission. Other contributions include $54 million in NASA tracking costs and about $144 million from the U.S. Department of Energy in support of the radioisotope thermoelectric generators and radioisotope heater units for the mission. The launch vehicle, provided to NASA by the U.S. Air Force, cost …show more content…
Communications with Cassini during the mission are carried out through stations of NASA’s Deep Space Network in California, Spain and Australia. Data from the Huygens probe will be received and relayed by the network and sent to the European Space Agency operations complex in Darmstadt, Germany. At NASA Headquarters, the Cassini program executive is Mark Dahl and the program scientist is Dr. Denis Bogan. At JPL, Robert T. Mitchell is program manager, Dr. Dennis Matson is Cassini project scientist and Dr. Linda Spilker is deputy project scientist. In the United States, 33 out of the 50 states were involved in working for the Cassini Spacecraft and in total there were more than 5,000 people that worked on both the Cassini and Huygens in the
The Cassini orbiter and its instruments represent a $1.422 billion investment by NASA. The agency has put a total of $710 million to support the cruise and orbital operations phase of the mission. Other contributions include $54 million in NASA tracking costs and about $144 million from the U.S. Department of Energy in support of the radioisotope thermoelectric generators and radioisotope heater units for the mission. The launch vehicle, provided to NASA by the U.S. Air Force, cost …show more content…
Communications with Cassini during the mission are carried out through stations of NASA’s Deep Space Network in California, Spain and Australia. Data from the Huygens probe will be received and relayed by the network and sent to the European Space Agency operations complex in Darmstadt, Germany. At NASA Headquarters, the Cassini program executive is Mark Dahl and the program scientist is Dr. Denis Bogan. At JPL, Robert T. Mitchell is program manager, Dr. Dennis Matson is Cassini project scientist and Dr. Linda Spilker is deputy project scientist. In the United States, 33 out of the 50 states were involved in working for the Cassini Spacecraft and in total there were more than 5,000 people that worked on both the Cassini and Huygens in the