The Cassini spacecraft, part of an exciting NASA mission with the goal
of performing comprehensive scientific investigations of all aspects of the Saturnian
system, will be launched in late 1997 and will begin a 4-year orbital
tour of Saturn in mid 2004. The MIMI (Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument)
investigation, with Dr. S. M. Krimigis of the Applied Physics Laboratory of The
Johns Hopkins University (JHU/APL) as Principal Investigator, is one of 12 instrument
investigators on Cassini. Dr. Krimigis and colleagues will study the energetic
charged particle environment of Saturn and will obtain the
very first images of Saturn's magnetosphere using the new technique
of Energetic Neutral Atom Imaging.
The JHU/APL, together with its colleagues at the Max-Plank-Institut für
Aeronomie in Lindau, Germany, the University of Maryland, the University of
Kansas, the University of Arizona, and the Centre d'Etude Spatiale des
Rayonnements in Toulouse, France have designed and fabricated the
Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) which is part of the science
instrument payload on NASA's Cassini Mission to Saturn.
- LEMMS
: The Low Energy
Magnetospheric Measurement System
- CHEMS
: The
CHarge Energy Mass Spectrometer
- INCA
: The Ion and Neutral
CAmera
- MEU
: The Main Electronic
Unit
