Key Points ◆ Cassini left Earth with less than one-thirtieth the propellant needed for all of the trajectory changes it would eventually

Navigation | Spacecraft – NASA Solar System Exploration

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2021-06-13 23:00:05

Key Points ◆ Cassini left Earth with less than one-thirtieth the propellant needed for all of the trajectory changes it would eventually make, but the navigation team used flybys of Saturn’s moon Titan to change trajectory. Key Points ◆ Like ancient seafarers, the Cassini navigation team used the stars to help navigate. Key Points ◆ Each of Cassini’s Saturn orbits lasted between a week and several months.

When Cassini’s journey ended in 2017, it had completed 294 orbits of Saturn and corrected its trajectory hundreds of times. Enormous planning went into every Cassini observation, but the element of the mission that made it possible to visit all the wonders of the Saturn system was navigation.

Cassini unraveled mysteries galore in the Saturn system by being where it was supposed to be, when it was supposed to be there. Yet Cassini arrived with but a fraction of the propellant needed to visit all the places on its itinerary. Instead of propellant, the navigation team used Saturn’s largest moon Titan to make the biggest changes to the spacecraft’s trajectory.