[NASA] Cassini Mission: 5 Things to Know About NASA Lewis’ Last Launch

[SpaceMan 0]

6 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

A natural ****** view from Cassini of Saturn with its Titan moon in the foreground in August 2012. Titan’s diameter is 50% larger than Earth’s moon.

Credit: NASA

NASA’s ambitious Cassini mission to Saturn in the late 1990s was one of the agency’s greatest accomplishments, providing unprecedented revelations about the esoteric outer planet and its moons. The complex undertaking was also a tremendous, yet bittersweet, achievement for the Lewis Research Center (today, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland), which oversaw the rockets that propelled Cassini to Saturn. Cassini brought a close to over 35 years of Lewis’ management of NASA’s launch vehicles.

Cassini Mission: 5 Things to Know About NASA Lewis’ Last Launch

1. NASA Lewis Launched the Largest and Most Complex Deep-Space Mission to Date

In the early 1980s, NASA began planning the first-ever in-depth study of the planet Saturn. The mission would use the Cassini orbiter designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the ********* Space Agency’s Huygens lander. It was one of the heaviest and most complex interplanetary spacecraft ever assembled. Cassini’s plutonium power system and intricate flight path further complicated the mission.

NASA Lewis was responsible for managing the launches of government missions involving the Centaur upper stage and the Atlas and Titan boosters. Cassini’s 6-ton payload

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

the U.S. Air Force’s three-stage Titan IV, the most powerful vehicle available, and pair it with the most advanced version of the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

referred to as G-prime.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The Titan IV shroud in the Space Power Facility in October 1990. It was only the second test since the world-class facility had been brought back online after over a decade in standby conditions.

Credit: NASA/Quentin Schwinn

2. Lewis Performed Hardware Testing for the Cassini Launch

One of NASA Lewis’ primary launch responsibilities was integrating the payload and upper stages with the booster. This involved balancing weight requirements, providing adequate insulation for Centaur’s cryogenic propellants, determining correct ******* times for the stages, and ensuring that that the large shroud, which encapsulated both the upper stage and payload, jettisoned cleanly after launch.

By the time of Cassini, the center had been testing shrouds (

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

) in simulated space conditions for over 25 years. NASA’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

possesses the world’s largest vacuum chamber and was large enough to accommodate the Titan IV’s 86-foot-tall, 16-foot-diameter fairing. In the fall of 1990, the shroud was installed in the chamber, loaded with weights that simulated the payload, and subjected to atmospheric pressures found at an altitude of 72 miles.

The system was successfully separated in less than half a second. Using simulated Cassini and Centaur vehicles, NASA engineers also redesigned a thicker thermal blanket that would protect Cassini’s power system from acoustic vibrations during liftoff.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Members of NASA Lewis’ Launch Vehicle Directorate pose with a Centaur model in May 1979 to mark the 50th successful launch of the Atlas/Centaur.

Credit: NASA/Martin Brown

3. Lewis Personnel Assisted with the Launch

In late August 1997, a group of NASA Lewis engineers traveled to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to make final preparations for the Cassini launch, working with Air Force range safety personnel at Patrick Air Force Base to ensure a safe launch under all circumstances.

After an aborted launch two days earlier, the vehicle was readied for another attempt in the evening of October 14. Lewis personnel took stations in the Launch Vehicle Data Center inside Hangar AE to monitor the launch vehicle’s temperature, pressure, speed, trajectory, and vibration during the launch. The weather was mild, and the countdown proceeded into the morning hours of October 15 without any major issues.

At 4:43 a.m. EDT, Titan’s first stage and the two massive solid rocket motors roared to life, and the vehicle rose into the dark skies over Florida. The Lewis launch team monitored the flight as the vehicle exited Earth’s atmosphere, Titan burned through its stages, and Centaur sent Cassini out of Earth orbit and on its 2-billion-mile journey to Saturn. After a successful spacecraft separation, Lewis’ responsibilities were complete. The

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This illustration depicts the Cassini orbiter with the Huygens lander descending to the Titan moon (left) and Saturn in the background.

Credit: NASA

4. Cassini-Huygens Brought a Close to Decades of Lewis Launch Operations

Cassini-Huygens was NASA Lewis’ 119th and final launch, and it brought to a close the center’s decades of launch operations. The center had been responsible for NASA’s upper-stage vehicles since the fall of 1962. The primary stages were the Agena, which had

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, and Centaur, which has

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and ******** in service today.

While Lewis continued to handle vehicle integration and other technical issues for launches of NASA payloads, in the 1980s, NASA began transferring launch responsibilities to commercial entities. In the mid-1990s, NASA underwent a major realignment that consolidated all launch vehicle responsibilities at NASA Kennedy.

So it was with mixed emotions that around 20 Lewis employees and retirees gathered at the Cleveland center in the early morning hours of Oct. 15, 1997, to watch the Cassini launch. The group held its cheers for 40 minutes after liftoff until Lewis’ responsibilities concluded for the last time with the safe separation of Cassini from Centaur. “In many ways, this is the end of an era, across the agency and, in particular, here at Lewis,” noted one engineer from the Launch Vehicle and Transportation Office.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The Titan IV/Centaur lifts off from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral on Oct. 15, 1997. NASA Lewis engineers were monitoring the launch from Hangar AE, roughly 3.5 miles to the south.

Credit: NASA

5. Cassini Made Groundbreaking Discoveries That Inform Today’s NASA Missions

Cassini’s seven-year voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (twice), Earth, and Jupiter so that the planets’ gravitational forces could accelerate the spacecraft. Cassini entered Saturn’s orbit in June 2004 and began relaying

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

back to Earth. Huygens separated from the spacecraft and descended to the surface of the Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in January 2005. It was the first time a vehicle ever landed on a celestial body in the outer solar system.

Cassini went on to make plunges into the planet’s upper atmosphere and through Saturn’s rings. 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on the mysterious planet, its moons, and rings led to the publication of nearly 4,000 technical papers. After over 13 years and nearly 300 orbits, on Sept. 15, 2017, NASA intentionally sent Cassini plummeting into the atmosphere where it burned up, ending its remarkable mission.

NASA engineers used their experiences from the Cassini mission to help design the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, which is intended to perform flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Keep Exploring

• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  from NASA Glenn
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up

Explore More

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

24 min read

NASA Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

Article 4 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

3 min read

Pioneering NASA Astronaut Health Tech Thwarts Heart ********

Article 4 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

8 min read

Kathryn Sullivan: The First ********* Woman to Walk in Space

Article 5 days ago

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up