SOI tonight!!

image source http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA05413_modest.jpg

Hey Kari:

Things were buzzing at JPL here in Southern California during the Mars Rover Landings. Well, JPL's "party animal" engineers and scientists are at at it again with tonight's SOI (Saturn orbital insertion) as the Cassini-Huygens reaches a big milestone.

If you are curious, check out the information about the Cassini orbiter.


image source: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/59932main_spacecraft-rotating-11.gif

And check out the description of the Huygens probe.


image source http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/59916main_8_1.jpg

Here's hoping for some great pictures post-SOI!

Rene

UPDATE: Woooooo hoooooo! Cassini-Huygens is in orbit and sending photos.


image source http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/61705main_soi8-516.jpg

UPDATE: Here are the observations from one of my friends who was an invited guest at JPL's SOI watch night party.

We were a jubilant group of family and friends who came out to support and to witness the insertion of Cassini onto Saturn's orbit. The crowd was cheering at every announced turning point of the procedure.

There were no live pictures of the insertion itself but we were provided a live video feed from Mission Control along with audio from various engineers monitoring Cassini and interviews with scientists involved in the project. There was also a doppler graph which took live radio transmission from Cassini. From the graph, you can infer it's speed and the various blips which indicated to us we were passing through Saturn's rings.

Hooray!