Space news: Cassini and JUICE

Hear ye, hear ye: on the evening of Tuesday 10 October, you can come to Imperial College London and meet some Cassini scientists and engineers. Well, OK, one engineer (that would be me). Imperial are hosting a Fringe event titled “A Space Odyssey” in celebration of the Cassini end of mission, and there are lots of things to see, including me reminiscing about Cassini operations whilst waving around tiny magnetometers, and do, including making your own thin film paper spacecraft. Read all about what's on offer here.

Book yourself a free ticket here.

If you come along, you can see this beauty without all the reflective glare:

Image of the 1/25 scale Cassini model in its newly procured perspex box for display at the Fringe.

In other space news, ESA have conducted a helicopter test on the radar boom that will be on the JUICE spacecraft, to ensure that it will be able to penetrate Ganymede’s ice crust. You can read about, and watch a video of, the tests here. (Synopsis: Big Metal Box and Poles get waved over fields in Germany, serious-faced blokes on the ground don’t seem to find anything funny about this, pfft.)

And another thing in Space News: BBC Horizon: Goodbye Cassini - Hello Saturn

BBC Horizon ran a one-hour "Goodbye Cassini - Hello Saturn" programme after the end of mission. My Big Boss takes up most of the second half of it, describing how the magnetometer discovered the plume activity at Enceladus.

If you're wondering who the woman in the purple shirt and glasses that she hugs at the end of mission event during the very last minute of the programme, can confirm that was me (see screencap above). That was shot about a minute after the loss of signal. :/

You can catch the Horizon programme on iPlayer if you missed it here.