Steven Clark with Space Flight

destination from one mission that we can

apply to others thank you a next

question comes from Steven Clark with

Space Flight now again if you have a

question just press star 1 I think

Steven Clark does Space Flight now most

of my questions have been asked and

answered that I have a couple first

maybe for for the Linda can you describe

the mood at the the science team since

you know following up on the last

question he may be getting your last

look and Enceladus you know for several

or at least a decade or more

with this flyby and the one in December

and for Earl can you just obey us on the

health of the Cassini spacecraft after

11 years at Saturn you know two more

years to go before the end of the

mission how's it doing thanks a lot

as far as the mood of the fight there's

a feedback as far as the mood of the

science team there's a lot of excitement

about this particular flyby and also

we're starting to realize as a group that we're getting toward the end of the

mission after this flyby just a single

more flyby of Enceladus a more distant

one coming up in December but we're

certainly all eagerly awaiting the

scientific results from this be plunged

through the plume yeah just a pylon of

that mood thing the flight team also

feels a certain sense both you know

maybe I have things going you know that

lasts for everything but the sense is

mostly of accomplishment they're just

absolutely exhausted in successes of

this mission and putting a capstone on

to the Enceladus encounters the icy

satellites and often the proximal orbits

is just a real sense of exhilaration

that an accomplishment relative to their

spacecraft it's absolutely phenomenal

we're running low on propellant as we

should be towards the end of a mission

you don't want to finish with a lot of

gas in the tank the instruments we've

lost one of the plasma spectrometer but

everything else is working well we've

worked around some of the some of the

bumps in the night the warranty's

expired an awful lot of components but

they're still functioning just

flawlessly I've got to say the ground. and the spacecraft assets are in great

shape and we're looking forward to

completing everything just the way we

plan okay and with that operator we're

going to take one more call and then

ladies John we're going to go back to

social media against and those questions

in it has tanked ask NASA so operating

one more questions in social media okay

we have a question from Lauren crush

with the verge me ask your question hi

thinks for taking my question so I was

wondering if we could go into a little

more detail about how you guys

characterized habitability like what

what you what ingredients would make it

much more likely to have life there than

not there anything in particular you're

excited to find as far as the

habitability question you want to know

first of all you have liquid water for

life like we know it on earth that's

very key then you want to know if you

have the right energy

available in this case the hydrothermal

vents are providing that source of

energy and then also the question of

composition do you have the right kinds

of ingredients and we see that in the

organic molecules we know there's carbon

dioxide there as well we've also been

able to measure that we have a salty

ocean it's slightly salty and so that

also is similar to the Earth's ocean we

think that the the pH of the ocean falls

in an intermediate range maybe of 9 to

12 so again a favorable kind of

condition for life so we are basically

taking these pieces of the puzzle that

we get back from the the composition and

the energy putting them together to form

this picture of a potentially habitable

ocean on Enceladus so this is Dwayne

brown for media we're gonna come back to

you in a few minutes we're going to take

a few more social media and then we'll

wrap up with any more media calls so

again we'll go back to Jason Townsend on

social media Jason sure the first

question comes from Ustream one of our

viewers there asked Lou gasps how long

have you been planning this flyby

they're all deer yeah we we plan to fly

by five years ago we have the entire

seventh last seven years of mission   choreographed back when we began and got

approval for what we're calling the

Solstice mission so this has been on the

books for a long time yeah I can add to

that since the discovery of the

Enceladus plume in 2005 we basically

refocused our Cassini tour to try and

include as many flybys of Enceladus as

we can and so by our final fiber we'll

have had 22 close flybys to Enceladus

and other opportunities to study in

particular the the plume itself at a

greater distance great next question

comes from Twitter user Cameron who

asked beside spectrometer data what

other data will continue be collecting

from the flyby well beside spectrometer

data will also be collecting images

inbound looking at Enceladus and then

closest approach basically dragging the

frame across for the narrow and wide

angle camera

then more images of the plume backlit as

we go outbound and at the same time as

the images we'll also be getting data in

other wavelengths from the ultraviolet

through the near-infrared and into the

far infrared as well as both the gas and

the plume data also we get measurements

of the local environment Institute not

just of the gas and particles but we'll

be looking at the plasma as we come in

and go out from Enceladus so we'll

really be using our entire suite of

Cassini instruments that as we fly

through the plume next question comes

from Twitter user Scott who asks how

close to dangerous is the altitude of

this path and were you tempted to go

lower we were tempted to go lower and we

would have gone lower more safe and

still felt like we were safe but there

were a couple of trades that we made

that that chose may not decide not to

I'll speak to the one engineering trade

Linda can speak to the science trades it

would have cost us some more fuel and we

really felt that that fuel could have

been better used in other parts of the

mission so that's the engineering part

of it it would have been safe to go

lower but there were also some science

components to that as well did yeah as

you go lower it just also makes the

flyby that much shorter as you go  whizzing through the plume so standing

off just a little bit more gives us a

few more tens of seconds to look at the

data itself and then the scientists

themselves also thought that using that

extra fuel to get to a very exciting set

of proximal orbits at the end of the

mission was definitely the right trade

to make we want to definitely get

through to those orbits next question

comes from Twitter user Jason who asks

how long could Enceladus is oceans

continue to spray out in the space will

it ever quote unquote run out that's a

very good question that's a very good

question indeed it's possible that that

ocean might have been there since the

time and solid is formed we don't know

for sure the fact that it's a global

ocean leads us to think in that

direction the the mass that it's losing

per day tells us that that those plumes

and jets could continue to erupt for a

very very very long time so I haven't

made an estimate of that given the total

volume of the ocean but certainly don't

have to worry about in our lifetime or

any anytime soon that the plume might

run out all right next question comes

from Twitter user Tom who asks after the

flyby could there be a possibility of a

surface sample mission to find out how

Enceladus is oceans in the years to come

we we actually studied that a few years

ago our met about eight years ago after

we first saw the plumes and it's a very

intriguing possibility it's it's a very

difficult mission to pull off if you've

ever looked at the highest resolution

pictures of the surface of Enceladus and

we'll be getting some more back soon

it's a very rough place to land a very

difficult place to land

but did you of Enceladus is that you

don't need to land it is spewing samples

into space so if you can just fly by the

right trajectory at the right velocity

you can grab some great samples next

question comes from Twitter user max who

asks will there be enough info gathered

for exobiologist

to do a microcosm lab experiment on the

potential for life no there won't

in fact we were discussing sample size

just the other day and somebody passed. around a small vial that indicated how

much actual the amount of water you

would actually get it in a sample from a

Cassini flyby and it's it's literally a

small drop but that's how sensitive our

instruments are with just a very tiny

drop of water we can deduce a lot of

things about the ocean last question

here for the surround the social

questions from Alice on Twitter and who

asked how long will it be until we get

report back on what was found Linda you

want to stop yes yeah for the pictures

we'll probably get this Earl mentioned

perhaps Thursday night more likely

Friday morning by the time we try and

process out some of this

year for the spectrometers for the

particles and gas there'll be a first

quick look within about a week but then

it may take several more weeks to do the

more complete and thorough analysis on

what we find there all right we'll

continue on the social questions here

this next one comes from Twitter user

cosmic who asked if this turns out to be

a perfect mission what results will you

be expecting to achieve for a perfect

flyby I think if we just get the data

back safely to the ground and make some

new new findings about what material

might be there and and put those pieces

together to tell us about what's going

on and Enceladus and I would say that

Cassini has already been a perfect

mission it it is completely exceeded our

expectations and when you factor in what

we have left to come in the next two

years it's going to be even more amazing

all right last question here financial

who asked Cassini ended in life is

expected to be in 2017 what more is

Cassini up to yeah

Cassini has a lot more in store we have

our final Enceladus flyby in December

and then we're starting the climb to our

final set of orbits first we'll pull in

our Perry apps our closest approach of

it each orbit in very close to Saturn's

F ring and get some very detailed

high-resolution views of those outermost

rings of Saturn we'll also get a chance

to fly very close to some of these tiny

ring moons that are basically some of

them potato shaped very oddly shaped and

to study those in more detail and then

in April 2017 we actually hop across the

entire ring system of Saturn and spend

22 orbits inside of a 2,000 kilometer

wide gap between the innermost ring and

the top of Saturn's atmosphere and

here's a chance to have a brand new

mission for Cassini we'll look at the

planets gravity and magnetic fields in

exquisite detail measure the mass of the

Rings for the very first time

get in situ measurements that will

directly measure the composition of the

ring particles as well as tell us about

the composition of Saturn's upper

atmosphere so it will be an incredible

end for the Cassini mission then on our

final orbit well I Seanie will go out

and what I call a blaze of glory as we

go into Saturn's atmosphere on that very

last orbit and at that point Cassini the

spacecraft itself will be vaporized and

you can imagine all of the molecules of

Cassini now spread across and being part

of Saturn itself excellent thank you all

okay folks well we're gonna wrap up

actually early and that's a testament to

a great team great presentations great

questions I want to thank Curt

Earle Linda and the entire Cassini team

as Curt said it's already been perfect

mission and it's still going and ladies

and gentlemen stay tuned for what we

will post following the Wednesday

October 28th event watch WWE golf class

Cassini again www.nasa.gov/station for

the latest updates

images and let's see what surprises we

will get down the road and with that

operator please close us up thank you

that does conclude today's conference we

thank you for your participation at this

time you may disconnect your lines

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