Cassini-Huygens

Mission Profile

Cassini-Huygens was NASA and ESA's flagship Saturn exploration mission, launched on 15 October 1997 aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur and arriving at Saturn in July 2004 after gravity assists at Venus, Earth, and Jupiter. The Cassini orbiter conducted 13 years of Saturn system observations, discovering active geysers on Enceladus that sample a subsurface ocean, mapping Titan's methane lake system from orbit, and revealing hundreds of previously unknown ring structures and moonlets. The ESA-contributed Huygens probe descended through Titan's atmosphere on 14 January 2005, transmitting data for 72 minutes on the surface. On 15 September 2017, Cassini was deliberately plunged into Saturn's atmosphere to prevent contamination of Enceladus's ocean, transmitting science data until the moment of its destruction in one of the most scientifically productive planned spacecraft deaths in history.