Janus, Prometheus And The Other Small Moons Options

[pioneer]

Will Cassini study Janus, Prometheus and the other small moons? I realize it probably won't make any close flybys, but it could study them from a distance like Galileo studied Amalthea, Adrastra and Thebe.

[volcanopele]

I don't know of specific image designs but I don't see why we wouldn't.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Actually, one of the official goals of Cassini is to make at least four "non-targeted" satellite flybys -- that is, flybys within 30,000 km incidentally while just on the way to some specifically targeted destination. And in fact the current tour design (as of last October) calls for it to make eight -- including a remarkably close chance flyby of Enceladus on 2-17-05 at only 1200 km distance, just BEFORE the first of its three targeted Enceladus flybys.

The others include one of Tethys' little Lagrange moon Telesto on 10-11-05 at 10,000 km and another of Telesto on Christmas 2005 at 19,000 km; one of Tethys on 6-27-06 (16,000 km); one of Dione's Lagrange moon Helene on 7-20-07 (29,000 km); one of Rhea at only 5100 km range on 8-30-07; one of Epimetheus at only 6200 km on 12-3-07; and one of Janus on 6-1-08 (14,000 km). There are fully 17 other flybys of Saturn's moons within 50,000 km, and needless to say on most of these they will try to get at least a few snaps.

The closest listed approaches to the other inner moons in the October flight plan are 35,000 km for Pan; 37,000 for Atlas; 31,000 for Pandora; 45,000 for Mimas; 68,000 for Calypso; and 63,000 km for Iapetus on New Year's Day 2005 in another nice piece of pure serendipity. (Prometheus, oddly, has none listed -- maybe because it and Pandora, following chaotic orbits, are especilly hard to predict flyby distances for.)

By the way, the October 2003 Cassini mission plan (a very useful document) can be obtained at http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/~atkinson/Huygen...issPlanRev0.pdf , and a very detailed description of the events surrounding Saturn Orbit Insertion is at http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/~atkinson/Huygen...cuments/SOI.pdf . (Thanks to Alex Blackwell.)

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Let's try those URLs again. (Sigh...)

Cassini Mission Plan (October 2003):
http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/~atkinson/Huygen...issPlanRev0.pdf

Saturn Arrival Mission Description:
http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/~atkinson/Huygen...cuments/SOI.pdf

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Gadfry. Let's try it again. Since this server apparently doesn't allow the printing of URLs beyond a certain length, I'll just include here the last part of both URLs after the word "~atkinson".

Mission Plan:
/Huygens/Documents/MissPlanRev0.pdf


Orbit Insertion Plan:
/Huygens/Documents/SOI.pdf

[djellison]

Heee hee - bruce, you're too used to the hell of using a Yahoo group

Those first links are FINE It shortens them, in the post itself, but they still link to the correctplace.

Oh - and you can edit posts here as well

Thanks for the links - interesting reading.

Doug

[remcook]

Atlas found

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2.cgi....jpg&type=image

movie:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2.cgi....gif&type=movie