Saturn images - Cassini

[Eric Mc]

It wasn't the first time they did this. When the Jupiter probe Galileo began to run low on manoeuvring fuel, they crashed that into the planet's atmosphere too.

[jmorgan]

Aye, but they have messed up a few.

(not intending to denigrate the attempts in any way)

[turbomoped]

They love spending money at space hq usa but by now they should be just launching a high spec mobile phone into space with some sort of remote control software and a big battery.
The rocket wouldnt have to be the size of the eiffel tower for one thing.
Obviously a phone with an aftermarket case to survive the cosmic rays and stuff.

[Eric Mc]

The space environment is harsh and the missions are long - so mundane equipment and software won't survive. 20 odd years ago the NASA Administrator , Dan Goldin, started an incentive called "Faster, Better, Cheaper" . The aim was to make more use of "off the shelf" hardware and software for major space probes. Whilst the aim was laudable, it was in that era that NASA had its biggest run of mission failures - and it was generally accepted that using stuff available for general use on these long range and risky ventures made them even riskier and prone to failure.

20 years on, we are beginning to see that NOW off the shelf stuff is more robust than it was in the past and we are now in a better position to use it. A good example is the current Juno probe which is orbiting Jupiter. It was only decided fairly late on in the development of the final design to include a camera. As a result, a fairly basic off the shelf camera was installed more or less at the last minute.

It's highly likely that Cassini is the last of its type i.e. large, heavy bespoke space probes with most of the technology contained in it specially designed and developed specifically for that mission.

[Derek Smith]

MartG said:

This week's Horizon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b095vp3p/hori...

I've recorded it. Watched it twice already. Given that it had to appeal to a large audience, or as large as BBC4 gets, I thought it excellent.

There will be a book, hopefully with lots of illustrations but with in-depth reporting as well.

We've lived through one of the great space missions.

[Einion Yrth]

Derek Smith said:

We've lived through one of the great space missions.

I've lived through most of them, and I thought you were older than me.

[Eric Mc]

I've lived through virtually all of them. I was born in May 1958 so there were only a small number of launches before my birth date - and all of those were earth orbiting satellites.