For those who may not have access to NASA TV, Cassini has survived its passage through the Saturnian ring plane (it went between the F & G rings) and started the ~90 minutes SOI burn a few minutes ago. Patrick
Hey Patrick - I was really surprised at the 90-minute burn. That must be a very low-thrust engine. I'd imagine that a longer burn at low intensity would give a lot more control over velocity.
For those who may not have access to NASA TV, Cassini has survived its passage through the Saturnian ring plane (it went between the F & G rings) and started the ~90 minutes SOI burn a few minutes ago.
Patrick
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Hi, Michael Carnes wrote:
Hey Patrick - I was really surprised at the 90-minute burn. That must be a very low-thrust engine. I'd imagine that a longer burn at low intensity would give a lot more control over velocity.
Yes, very low thrust engine (something like 40 or 50 kg). BTW, they just passed closest approach (20,500 km) and confirmed that Cassini has already been captured by Saturn but that there's another 6 minutes left in the burn. 'Course this is all in Earth Received Time. all the data we're seeing now actually happened 90 minutes ago. Go Cassini! Patrick :-)
Too, it's a heavy spacecraft, over 4,000 lbs IIRC, and has been whipped-up to nearly solar escape velocity via multiple gravitational assists. A final speed-up as it entered Saturn's gravitational influence, and this thing was really moving. A long burn even with a reasonably muscular engine seems not out of the ordinary. And the orbital trajectory...4 years and only about 6 dozen total orbits! --- Michael Carnes <moogiebird@earthlink.net> wrote:
I was really surprised at the 90-minute burn. That must be a very low-thrust engine.
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participants (3)
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Chuck Hards -
Michael Carnes -
Patrick Wiggins