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A montage of Cassini images: left, Saturn and its moon Tethys; right: top, Titan, middle, Telesto, bottom, Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.April 10, 2006
The Cassini-Huygens mission team, which has captured the most detailed
views ever of Saturn and its myriad of moons, was honored with an
Aerospace Laurel award by the editors of Aviation Week & Space
Technology magazine.
Aviation Week presented the award for the successful landing of the
European Space Agency's Huygens probe on Saturn's moon Titan, and for
the science return and inspiring images from NASA's Cassini orbiter,
which will continue sending back data for many years.
According to the Aviation Week magazine citation, "Dennis Matson,
the project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Jean-Pierre
Lebreton, the European Space Agency's project scientist and mission manager,
have strived since the beginning to create, protect and operate the Cassini-Huygens
mission, and are good representatives of the larger team that made this
two-decade international project possible." The award was presented on
April 7 in Washington, D.C.
Cassini-Huygens was launched on Oct. 15, 1997. Cassini arrived at Saturn
in July 2004, and embarked on a science-packed expedition of the ringed
planet and its dozens of moons, including Titan. The Huygens probe hitched
a ride on Cassini during the journey covering 3.5 billion kilometers (2.2
billion miles). The probe descended through Titan's dense, murky atmosphere
to reveal a whole new world with Earth-like processes. Cassini recently made
a remarkable discovery at another moon of Saturn, snowy Enceladus, discovering
gigantic geysers of ice particles spewing into space from a warm interior.
The mission represents the best technical efforts of 260 scientists from the
United States and 17 European nations. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a
cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
For images and more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
Media contact:
Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
2006-051
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