<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=iso-8859-1"></head><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="font-family: Helvetica; "></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">* <b>Cassini</b> - October 15, 2012</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><b>A Long and Winding Road: Cassini Celebrates 15 Years</b></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">"Today, NASA's Cassini spacecraft celebrates 15 years of uninterrupted drive time, earning it a place among the ultimate interplanetary road warriors.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Since launching on Oct. 15, 1997, the spacecraft has logged more than 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion kilometers) of exploration ñ enough to circle Earth more than 152,000 times. After flying by Venus twice, Earth, and then Jupiter on its way to Saturn, Cassini pulled into orbit around the ringed planet in 2004 and has been spending its last eight years weaving around Saturn, its glittering rings and intriguing moons.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; color: rgb(2, 30, 170); "><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=250">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=250<span style="letter-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(2, 30, 170); "></span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">This video highlights sights and sounds from the journey of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Cassini launched 15 years ago and has been exploring the Saturn system since 2004. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">And, lest it be accused of refusing to write home, Cassini has sent back some 444 gigabytes of scientific data so far, including more than 300,000 images. More than 2,500 reports have been published in scientific journals based on Cassini data, describing the discovery of the plume of water ice and organic particles spewing from the moon Enceladus; the first views of the hydrocarbon-filled lakes of Saturn's largest moon Titan; the atmospheric upheaval from a rare, monstrous storm on Saturn and many other curious phenomena. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">"As Cassini conducts the most in-depth survey of a giant planet to date, the spacecraft has been flying the most complex gravity-assisted trajectory ever attempted," said Robert Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Each flyby of Titan, for example, is like threading the eye of the needle. And we've done it 87 times so far, with accuracies generally within about one mile [1.6 kilometers], and all controlled from Earth about one billion miles [1.5 billion kilometers] away."</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The complexity comes in part from the spacecraft lining up visits to more than a dozen of Saturn's 60-plus moons and sometimes swinging up to get views of poles of the planet and moons. Cassini then works its way back to orbiting around Saturn's equator, while staying on track to hit its next targeted flyby. The turn-by-turn directions that mission planners write also have to factor in the gravitational influences of the moons and a limited fuel supply."</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Cassini Imaging Team's website - <a href="http://ciclops.org"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(4, 51, 255); ">http://ciclops.org</span></a>.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">For the latest mission status reports, visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(4, 51, 255); ">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</span></a>. The speed and location of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; color: rgb(4, 51, 255); "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; color: #000000">(<a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; ">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm</span></a>)</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: Courier; "><span style="font-family: Helvetica; "></span></div></body></html>