View source for Cassini-Huygens Mission

The '''Cassini-Huygens Mission''' was a [[spacecraft]] launched by [[NASA]] on October 15, 1997 to explore the planet [[Saturn]] and its moon, [[Titan]]. The payload was carried aloft by a Titan IV-B/Centaur launch vehicle. It consited of the main craft (Cassini) and a probe (Huygens). Partnering together to make the launch possible were NASA, the [[European Space Agency]] (ESA), and the Italian space agency [[Agenzia Spaziale Italiana]]. Over 17 countries worked in some capacity on the project.

The cost of the mission totalled about $3.27 billion, with the United States contributing $2.6 billion and European partners' contributing $660 million.

Aptly named, the Cassini-Huygens mission is named after two men who were pioneers with regard to discoveries about Saturn and its moons. The name of the main spacecraft was in reference to [[Giovanni Domenico Cassini]], a famous Italian mathematician, astronomer, engineer, and astrologer from the 17th Century, credited with the discovery of the separation in Saturn's rings, now known as the [[Cassini division]].

The name of the Huygens portion of the vehicle comes from [[Christiaan Huygens]] a Dutch mathematician, astronomer and physicist, who is creditied with the discovery of Saturn's moon Titan.




== Facts and Figures ==  
<ref>http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/index.cfm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"

| Launch Date:
| October 15, 1997
|-
| Dimensions: 
| 6.7 meters (22 feet) high; 4 meters (13.1 feet) wide 
|-
| Weight(fueled):
| 5,712 kilograms (12,593 pounds) including the Huygens probe, adapter, etc.
|-
| Weight(unfueled):
| 2,125 kilograms (4,685 pounds) orbiter alone
|-
| Orbiter science instruments:
| composite infrared spectrometer, imaging system, ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, [[imaging radar]], radio science, [[plasma spectrometer]], cosmic dust analyzer, ion and neutral mass spectrometer, [[magnetometer]], magnetospheric imaging instrument, radio and plasma wave science
|-
| Number of people who worked on some portion of Cassini-Huygens:
| More than 5,000 
|-
| U.S. states in which Cassini work was carried out:
| 33
|}


==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Space Exploration]]
[[Category:Planets]]