Enceladus Information Page
Mission Data
Observational data produced from a Mission or Investigation
Secondary
Voyager
9/5/1997
The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-40-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space on November 5, 2018 and scientists hope to learn more about this region. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific information about their surroundings through the Deep Space Network, or DSN. The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries th... ...Show More
Cassini-Huygens
10/15/1997—9/15/2017
Orbiting the ringed planet Saturn and its numerous moons, the Cassini spacecraft was a keystone of exploration of the Saturnian system and the properties of gaseous planets in our solar system. A joint endeavor of NASA, the European Space Agency, or ESA, and the Italian Space Agency, Cassini launched in 1997 along with ESA's Huygens probe. The spacecraft contributed to studies of Jupiter for six months in 2000 before reaching its destination, Saturn, in 2004 and starting a string of flybys of Saturn's moons. That same year it released the Huygens probe on Saturn's moon Titan to conduct a study of the moon's atmosphere and surface composition. In its second extended mission, Cassini made the first observations of a complete seasonal period ... ...Show More