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Astonishing Video From NASA/JPL: Four Days at Saturn

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The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge9/15/2016 9:51:51 pm PDT

re: #6 teleskiguy

The Cassini spacecraft launched in 1997 and the mission is still not done. NASA scientists and engineers working on this sonofabitch are fucking amazing people.

Cassini launched when those constant gyro failures were still a mystery. They finally figured out that spinning them up with compressed air during testing to spare the motors was oxidizing the copper printed circuit traces that powered them. Switching to nitrogen solved the problem. That discovery came while Cassini was on its way, and had had two gyros fail before even reaching Jupiter, so I was really sweating the whole thing out. Who would have thought the last three—the minimum complement—would last for 20 years?

I still think the Huygens probe landing on Titan will be the pinnacle for space exploration in my lifetime.