And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Cassini.html ========================================================= Saturn-Bound Spacecraft Has Problem (Cassini) By The Associated Press, January 14, 1999 PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- NASA's biggest and most complex interplanetary probe went into so-called safe mode this week when it detected a potential problem on its way to Saturn. The plutonium-powered Cassini spacecraft remained in contact with its operations team. The probe sensed the possible problem Monday, triggering a program designed to halt non-critical activity, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Wednesday. The spacecraft began using minimum power and pointing its 12-foot antenna toward the sun to shade the rest of the spacecraft. Program Manager Bob Mitchell said engineering data from the spacecraft are being transmitted to Earth to help engineers pinpoint what caused Cassini to enter the safe mode. JPL said engineers suspect that during a tracking maneuver, Cassini's star scanner may have viewed a patch of sky without the bright stars the spacecraft uses to orient itself in space. Software would have alerted the system when the scanner had spent sufficient time searching for but not spotting familiar stars. Mitchell said he expects Cassini will be taken out of safe mode later this week after the problem has been identified and data thoroughly analyzed. Cassini was launched on Oct. 15 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., over the objections of anti-nuclear protesters who feared what might happen if the rocket exploded while carrying Cassini and its 72 pounds of poisonous plutonium. The spacecraft, on a $3.4 billion mission through the solar system, is expected to reach Saturn in July 2004. It passed Venus last year and this year will use Venus again and then swoop within 500 miles of Earth, an encounter that also worries Cassini opponents. ========================================================== Comments: The Casinni Pu capsule will not take a high velocity earth atmosphere burn up without releasing the Pu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOEWatch List --- Subscribe online: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/doewatch Quote from Truman's diary July 25, 1945: "We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesized in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. Anyway we think we have found the way to cause the disintegration of the atom." "The Doctor of the future will give No Medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." -Attributed to Thomas Alva Edison <<<<=-=-=FREE LEONARD PELTIER=-=-=>>>> If you think you are too small to make a difference; try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.... African Proverb <<<<=-=http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ =-=>>>> IF it says: "PASS THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW...." Please Check it before you send it at: http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm
