NASA extends Cassini's probe of Saturn's moons

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Finished with its
four-year primary mission to Saturn, the Cassini orbiter has turned its cameras
upon the ringed planet's mysterious moons as it kicks off a two-year extended
mission.

The primary mission began when the spacecraft entered
Saturnian orbit on July 1, 2004. Cassini produced the first pictures that
pierced the haze surrounding Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. The orbiter also sent
down a European-built piggyback lander called Huygens, which beamed back
pictures from Titan's surface. The Cassini-Huygens observations revealed that
Titan was laced with hydrocarbon seas and channels.

"We've had a wonderful mission and a very eventful
one in terms of the scientific discoveries we've made, and yet an uneventful one
when it comes to the spacecraft behaving so well," Bob Mitchell, Cassini program
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "We are
incredibly proud to have completed all of the objectives we set out to
accomplish when we launched. We answered old questions and raised quite a few
new ones, and so our journey continues."

Cassini also discovered geysers of ice spewing from
Enceladus, another Saturnian moon that may harbor subsurface oceans and perhaps
even life.

Titan and Enceladus are the primary targets for
Cassini's extended mission, which NASA approved in April. Cassini will also
monitor seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn, explore Saturn's magnetic field
and witness Saturn's equinox on Aug. 11, 2009, when sunlight will pass directly
through the plane of the planet's rings.

The spacecraft's new agenda has been dubbed the
Cassini Equinox Mission in honor of the astronomical event, which occurs roughly
every 15 years.

Cassini's 3.3 billion U.S. dollar primary mission was
funded by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA is
picking up the bill for the 160 million dollar extension. Officials have said
the mission could be extended yet again if Cassini was still in good working
order in mid-2010.

(Agencies)