{"id":11227,"date":"2017-01-16T07:36:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T07:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=11227"},"modified":"2017-01-20T08:20:45","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T08:20:45","slug":"catching-cassinis-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/catching-cassinis-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Cassini’s call"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Above Saturn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week, ESA deep-space radio dishes on two continents are listening for signals from the international Cassini spacecraft, now on its final tour of Saturn.<\/span><\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s sensitive tracking antennas at New Norcia, Western Australia, and Malarg\u00fce, Argentina, are being called in to help with crucial observations during Cassini\u2019s last months in orbit, dubbed the \u2018Grand Finale<\/a><\/span>\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cassini\u2013Huygens mission<\/a><\/span> is one of the most successful exploration endeavours ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Launched in October 1997, the Cassini orbiter delivered Europe\u2019s Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn\u2019s mysterious moon Titan in 2005, just a few months after becoming the first spacecraft to enter orbit around the giant gas planet.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to Huygens\u2019 historic delivery 12 years ago on 14 January, Cassini has returned a wealth of information from Saturn\u2019s system, including images and other data from the massive planet, its multiple moons and its hauntingly beautiful system of rings.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Huygens landing on Titan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now running low on fuel, Cassini will be commanded to dive into Saturn\u2019s upper atmosphere on 15 September, where it will burn up like a meteor.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As part of its final ambitious observing plan, the craft began last month making a series of 20 orbits, arcing high above the planet\u2019s north pole then diving down, skimming the narrow F-ring at the edge of the main rings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, starting in April, Cassini will leap over the rings to begin its final series of 22 daring dives, taking it between the planet and the inner edge of the rings.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ESA\u2019s Big Iron listens in<\/span><\/h3>\n

Between December 2016 and July 2017, ESA<\/a>‘ ground stations will work with NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network to record radio signals transmitted by Cassini across 1.6 billion km, helping scientists to study Saturn\u2019s atmosphere and its enigmatic rings, bringing us closer to understanding its origins.<\/span><\/p>\n

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They will record signals transmitted from Cassini that have crossed or bounced off Saturn\u2019s atmosphere or rings. Variations in the strength and frequency contain valuable information on the composition, state and structure of whatever they have passed through.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, tiny wobbles in Cassini\u2019s orbit due to the varying pull of gravity can be teased from the signals, helping to build our understanding of the planet\u2019s interior.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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First passes<\/span><\/h3>\n

The first three recording passes involving ESA stations were conducted in December, followed by two more on 3 and 10 January. Twenty more deep-space link-ups are scheduled.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first few months of 2017, we\u2019re mostly recording signals that will transit through the ring system or the atmosphere,\u201d says Daniel Firre, the service manager at ESA\u2019s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter April, as Cassini\u2019s orbit gets lower, we\u2019ll switch to recording signals to be used for gravity analysis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The recordings \u2013 some batches comprising up to 25 GB \u2013 are passed to the Cassini radio science team for analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe ESA stations are helping to acquire extremely important radio science data from Cassini, highlighting how interagency cooperation can make planetary missions even more valuable,\u201d notes Aseel Anabtawi, from the radio science group at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some recording contacts between Cassini and Earth will last over 10 hours, and require technically complex handovers of the signal from an ESA to a NASA station and vice versa. In addition, specialists in Darmstadt must perform very precise frequency calculations for the recording passes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSupporting Cassini radio science for the mission\u2019s Grand Finale requires not only teamwork at ESA, but also deep collaboration between the agencies,\u201d says ESA\u2019s Thomas Beck, responsible for ground station services.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is part of our continuing mutual support<\/a><\/span> that is yielding real scientific and engineering value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, ESA deep-space radio dishes on two continents are listening for signals from the international Cassini spacecraft, now on its final tour of Saturn. ESA\u2019s sensitive tracking antennas at New Norcia, Western Australia, and Malarg\u00fce, Argentina, are being called in to help with crucial observations during Cassini\u2019s last months in orbit, dubbed the \u2018Grand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2-300x153.jpg",300,153,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",600,305,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",600,305,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,356,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",550,280,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",95,48,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",640,325,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",96,49,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Saturn_northern_hemisphere_node_full_image_2.jpg",150,76,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}