[X] My Assistant

[jsheff]

The January PSG meeting is now in progress and the tour for extended mission is scheduled to be chosen on Thursday (Feb 1). There are 13 tours being considered OF4a, PF-3, PF-4, PF-6, PF-6h9, PF-7, PF-8, PF-9, PF-10, PF-11, PF-12 & PF-13 --plus 'tweaks' on these tours e.g. there is a PF-8a, PF-9a

S-S-So ... has anybody heard anything?

- John Sheff
Cambridge, MA

[john_s]

The winner is (drum roll please) PF6h9. Officially adopted on Thursday. I haven't sifted through all the details yet, but from my parochial point of view, I know it includes seven close Enceladus flybys, so that's good. Most of the science groups (Titan, Rings, Magnetosphere, Saturn, and Icy Satellites) were pretty happy with this choice- it packs in an amazing number of science opportunities.

John.

[Holder of the Tw...]

Enchaladas?

I've always been in favor of ending the mission with a final Titan series ramping up the orbit so much that Cassini gets catapulted out of the Saturian system. This would preserve the spacecraft as a future museum piece. Either the last couple of orbits or the final escape could be aimed for a last swing past Iapetus.

In my daydreams, I see a final inbound of Cassini passing close by the fully lit trailing hemisphere of Iapetus, with the Snowman in all it's glory, on the way to the last ever Titan pass. Then Cassini is hurled sunward, where the last propellant is used to establish a halo orbit at Saturn's L1, where it continues to observe the planet till the day the reaction wheels give out.