Debra J. Rahn
  Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  January 3, 1991
  (Phone:  202/453-8455)
  
  Paula Cleggett-Haleim
  Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
  (Phone:  202/453-1547)
  
  
  RELEASE:  91-1
  
  NASA AND ESA SIGN AGREEMENT FOR A JOINT SATURN MISSION
  
  
      NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) officials recently 
  signed an agreement to cooperate in the development of the 
  Cassini spacecraft to study Saturn.  NASA Administrator Richard 
  H. Truly and ESA Director-General Jean-Marie Luton signed the 
  agreement.
  
      The Cassini spacecraft will explore the Saturnian system,  
  which contains a host of volatile-rich bodies with a record of 
  processes that have modified these bodies.  The Cassini 
  spacecraft will be composed of the Saturn Orbiter provided by 
  NASA and the Huygens Probe System provided by ESA.  It is 
  currently scheduled for launch by NASA on a Titan IV/Centaur 
  vehicle in April l996.  NASA will provide overall Cassini mission 
  operations and ESA will support probe operations.
  
      The flight trajectory requires approximately 7 years from 
  launch to Saturn orbital insertion.  Once at the Saturnian 
  system, the mission baseline lifetime is 4 years.
  
      The Saturn Orbiter will deliver the Huygens Probe to Titan 
  and will make repeated close flybys of Titan to allow intensive 
  study of this moon of Saturn.  The mission also will conduct 
  detailed observations of several other moons of Saturn, the 
  Saturnian rings, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
  
      Enroute to Saturn the spacecraft will pass through the 
  asteroid belt and make observations of a least one asteroid, and 
  thereafter fly by Jupiter making observations of the planet and 
  its environment.
  
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