Topic: NASA Extends Cassini's Tour of Saturn

[sam]

http://www.physorg.com/news184438837.html

NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. The agency's fiscal year 2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study of the ringed planet.

Fantastic news really, Cassini is a fantastic satellite and is still producing world leading science. Shame they can't redirect it to look at the outer planets.

[Clive]

Just like the Duracell battery, it goes on and on and on.  Hardly a week goes by without it making yet another major discovery. 

[sam]

bit more on this: More Stunning Images and Discoveries Ahead: Cassini Mission Extended to 2017

With the new 2011 NASA budget allowing for more space science activities, the space agency has extended the Cassini mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. "This is a mission that never stops providing us surprising scientific results and showing us eye popping new vistas," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division. "The historic traveler's stunning discoveries and images have revolutionized our knowledge of Saturn and its moons." This is the second mission extension for Cassini, and the new "Solstice Mission" will allow scientists to study seasonal and other long-term weather changes on the planet and its moons.

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/03/more-stunning-images-and-discoveries-ahead-cassini-mission-extended-to-2017/

[Clive]

That will double the mission's lifetime.  Nobody could have predicted such a success story at a time when almost every NASA mission was a total failure. 

[Simon]

I expect Obama will cut spending before long.

[Clive]

He'll pull the plug out.   

[Rik]

Or stop feeding the meter.