Cassini's Journey

The Cassini spacecraft will spend over six and a half years traveling from Earth to Saturn. Cassini will follow a complex trajectory that uses four gravity assists -- two with Venus and one each with Earth and Jupiter -- to build up enough velocity to make it out to Saturn. To help you understand where Cassini is going and when, use the interactive diagram below or our animated diagram of Cassini's journey through the solar system.

Cassini image map
The image above shows the trajectory of the Cassini spacecraft as it travels from Earth to Saturn. To learn more about each step of its journey, click on one of the numbered events in the image. Note: for this interactive graphic to work properly, you need a browser which supports JavaScript 1.1 or later (Netscape 3.0 and later or MSIE 4.0).

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