WELCOME

NASA's Cassini spacecraft entered the Saturn system in 2009. (Photo:

June 29, 2017 by Lena Webb

NASA's Cassini spacecraft entered the Saturn system in 2009. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

But Cassini is doing better. In fact, the spacecraft is now in the midst of a second mission this year, which will see a more detailed view of the Titan surface. The second mission, in 2020, will be the first ever to see Titan for the first time, and the first ever to pick up the Titan data.

In addition to looking at the Titan with its infrared spectrometer, the spacecraft will also look at the atmosphere of Titan. NASA has already begun a series of studies of Titan's atmosphere, and will launch those studies into the 2020s.

The Cassini mission is part of the International Planetary Society's Voyager 7 mission. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

The Cassini spacecraft will orbit Saturn on its last mission, in 2011, and it will return data from the Cassini-Huygens mission at the end of this year. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

NASA's Cassini mission is about 10 percent bigger than the Saturn V mission. It will orbit Saturn about 3.5 times farther away than the sun, and the spacecraft is aiming for an area less than 1,000 miles (1,600 km). This means it won't have the opportunity to land atop other moons for the next few decades, a goal that will require a new mission.

But at the same time, it will look to land on some of the most spectacular objects in the solar system. From the ground up, Cassini will use a camera to see the rings of the icy moon.

The Cassini spacecraft will pick up signals from the rings of Jupiter and Saturn. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

The Cassini spacecraft will use its main computer and a computer-aided camera, so it can study the rings of Saturn. The mission will launch on January 11, and it will fly to the Sun to take images of the rings. The Cassini spacecraft will look for dust storms, and it will look for ice on Titan's surface.

Here are some of the images from the upcoming flyby of the Cassini, from the Cassini-Huygens data.

NASA's Cassini orbiter (Photo: NASA/JPL)

The spacecraft is about 1