Cassini Mission Receives Air and Space Museum Award

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2012-085 March 22, 2012

Cassini Mission Receives Air and Space Museum Award

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-085&cid=release_2012-085

PASADENA, Calif. -- The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has bestowed its highest
group honor, the Trophy for Current Achievement, on NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn. The
annual award recognizes outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and
technology.

The trophy was presented Wednesday, March 21, during an evening ceremony at the museum in
Washington. Established in 1985, the award has been presented to seven NASA planetary mission
teams.

"This joint mission has produced an unprecedented science return," said William Knopf,
Cassini program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Missions like Cassini pave the
way for future robotic and human exploration throughout our solar system and beyond."

Launched in 1997, the Cassini spacecraft entered Saturn's orbit in June 2004 with the European
Space Agency's (ESA) Huygens probe bolted to its side. In December 2004, the spacecraft
successfully released Huygens, which entered the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
Cassini completed its prime mission in 2008 and has been extended twice. It is now in its so-called
solstice mission, which will enable scientists to observe seasonal changes in Saturn and its moons
during the planet's northern summer solstice. The mission will last through September 2017.

"We look forward to sailing around the Saturn system for several more years to see how our views
of the planet and its magnificent moons change as we get into northern summer solstice," said
Robert Mitchell, the Cassini program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., who accepted the award on behalf of the team.

The Cassini spacecraft carries 12 science instruments and investigations, with an additional six
aboard Huygens. Cassini mission highlights to date include the discovery of four new moons and
two new rings around Saturn. Cassini observed spraying water vapor and icy particle jets from the
moon Enceladus. In Saturn's northern hemisphere, the spacecraft watched the evolution of a monster
storm, a sign of seasonal change from northern winter into northern spring.

Cassini and Huygens has also revealed new characteristics about Titan, the only body in the solar
system other than Earth with stable liquid on its surface.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and the Italian Space
Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The
Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is
managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

Images of the award and a Cassini historical video are available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/GH6qbA

For a full listing of previous awardees, visit:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/trophy/nasm.cfm

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