Posts Tagged: "Cassini"

NASA’s Juno craft to reach Jupiter on July 4th to find what’s hidden beneath the clouds

Since 1972, NASA has sent a series of eight spacecraft to this fifth planet in our solar system, including Cassini and Galileo. This 4th of July, NASA engineers and scientists are hoping for the successful arrival of Juno, the latest spacecraft to visit this massive planetary body. When it arrives at Jupiter, Juno will fire up its main engine for 35 minutes to enter an elliptical orbit around the planet. Juno’s mission will see it orbit Jupiter at least 37 times at a distance of 5,000 km (3,100 mi) from the top of Jupiter’s cloud atmosphere, the closest any craft has come to this planet.

Steve Brachmann

July 2, 2016

NASA’s Cassini orbiter sends back data from Saturn leading up to the mission’s Grand Finale

Powering Cassini towards the sixth planet of our solar system, and helping it to perform the braking techniques required to pull the craft into orbit around Saturn, is a propulsion module constructed by Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT). This module, the largest U.S. planetary spacecraft propulsion system ever constructed, was fired up 16 times while Cassini traveled to Saturn and will be used more than 100 times over the entire course of the already extended mission. Lockheed also built the Titan IV/Centaur rocket that launched Cassini-Huygens into space back in 1997.

Steve Brachmann

September 14, 2015