Cassini Begins Transmitting Data From Enceladus Flyby

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
carolina.martinez@jpl.nasa.gov

Mission Status Report: 2008-157 Aug. 11, 2008

Cassini Begins Transmitting Data From Enceladus Flyby

Shorty after 9:03 p.m. Pacific Time, the Cassini spacecraft began sending data to Earth following a close
flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus. During closest approach, Cassini successfully passed only 50
kilometers (30 miles) from the surface of the tiny moon.

Cassini's signal was picked up by the Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia, and relayed to
the Cassini mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"We are happy to report that Cassini's begun sending data home," said Julie Webster, Cassini team chief
at JPL. "The downlink will continue through the night and into tomorrow morning."

Closest approach occurred at approximately 3:21 p.m. PDT, while Cassini was traveling at a swift 17.7
kilometers per second (40,000 miles per hour) relative to Enceladus.

During the flyby, Cassini focused its cameras and other remote sensing instruments on Enceladus with
an emphasis on the moon's south pole where parallel stripes or fissures dubbed "tiger stripes" line the
region. That area is of particular interest because geysers of water-ice and vapor jet out of the fissures
and supply material to Saturn's E-ring. Scientists hope to learn more about the fissures and whether
liquid water is indeed the engine powering the geysers.

"There is a lot of anticipation and excitement about what today's flyby might reveal" said Bob Pappalardo,
Cassini project scientist, also of JPL. "Over the next few days and weeks, the Cassini teams will be
analyzing the photos and other data to tease out new clues about this tiny, active world".

Two more Enceladus flybys are planned for October. The first of those will cut Monday's flyby distance in
half and bring the spacecraft to a remarkable 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the surface. Enceladus
measures about 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter--just one-seventh the diameter of Earth's moon.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

For images, videos and a mission blog on the flyby, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . Raw
(unprocessed) images are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-
list1.html .

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