Has anybody got a handy list of what's in store for 2009/10? I've looked at Emily's extended tour page, but it doesn't include what kind of obsevations are planned for the various flybys.

I can give you some Enceladus highlights from the four remaining XM flybys, though details are still subject to potential change:

Rev 120, November 2nd 2009: Deepest-yet plume sampling (100 km over the south pole), remote sensing of the anti-Saturn hemisphere

Rev 121, November 21 2009: High-resolution plume imaging, high-resolution tiger stripe remote sensing (1560 km altitude)

Rev 130, April 28 2010: Gravity pass

Rev 131, May 18 2010: Plume UV solar occultation

There are also close Rhea and Dione flybys, with the primary purpose of understanding the interaction of those bodies with the magnetosphere, though there will be high-resolution remote sensing too.

The biggest event for 2009 will probably be the solar ring plane crossing, though.

John.

Turned out to be a good question! Tour info has just been posted to the Cassini page for 2009.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/saturnt...ntourdates2009/

--Emily

I know we're not talking spectacular pictures, but I'm hoping we see something..?

Feb-07-2009 102 Cassini views the Earth as it passes behind the moon Titan

Radar & Titan-wise, we basically hammer the deep southern hemisphere. Spring 2009 starts a bit
slow, but in summer and fall the T55-T60 sequence should give us S polar coverage comparable with
what we got in the north T16-T30. A good bit of Shangri-La/edge of Xanadu too. T61 sees Belet; T64
is the one North polar radar pass in XM/SM.

Thanks for those individual Enceladus and Titan SAR summaries. Thanks also to Emily for noticing the arrival of 2009 Tour Dates on the Cassini site. I'm sure this will soon be followed by the 2009 Tour Highlights there also. That format provides a useful advance preview of what will appear in more detail in the Ciclops 'looking ahead's. I've been feeling lost without it these last few weeks (and I hope I'm still reading them in 7 years' time).

I would imagine they would use the opportunity for radio science.

In addition to the satellite flybys mentioned above there is 9500 km Mimas flyby in February 2010. It should result in vastly improved coverage of the 'Herschel hemisphere'.

Tour highlights for 2009 have now been added to the Cassini website.

Got a whole page of black with a corner of Saturn's rings when I tried to print it off, so for easy printing see here:

Wow, thanks for reminding me about that encounter. Here are a few views from Cassini of this encounter (C/A and about 2x the distance shortly afterward):

Neato! That's going to be great. --Emily

This is a quick animation I did last year of that flyby to see if there was likely to be useful stereo coverage of relatively poorly imaged terrain (I want a nice DEM of Herschel ):

http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/anim/mimas_css_flyby.avi

This is going to be a be a great flyby despite the fact that Herschel is near the subsolar point so there isn't a lot of shadows there.

Thanks for that video! I think it's cool how much the terminator moves throughout the flyby (though no doubt that creates challenges for assembling mosaics).

--Emily

Just spotted this:

Cassini team ask for mission extension through to 2017

"The things that is magic about seven more years is that Saturn will reach its northern hemisphere's summer solstice," said Robert Mitchell.

There was discussion in an earlier thread concerning the pros and cons of a short but glorious two year extension, with lavish expenditure of remaining fuel, or a more parsimonious approach. E.g., this post and replies. The article suggests that the mission is now promoting the longer approach, although I imagine that it has proposed a full range of possible mission lengths for NASA to consider.

Putting more important considerations aside, I'm wondering about the possibility that when Juno arrives in Jupiter's orbit in 2016, there may be an active mission at every one of the five classical planets:

Saturn -- Cassini
Jupiter -- Juno
Mars -- Some combination of orbiters and landers
Venus -- VEX super-extended mission? JAXA orbiter?
Mercury -- Messenger extended mission?

TTT