NASA Blog: Enceladus August Flyby Preview

STATUS REPORT Date Released: Friday, August 8, 2008 Source: Hi everybody, Well, after the successful and exciting Enceladus flyby in March ... we're doing it again!! Cassini is executing a close pass by the little active moon, on Monday, August 11. Woo hoo! This is the 5th close Enceladus flyby we've done. The first was in February 2005 (that one was not an official "targeted" flyby), the 2nd was in March 2005, the 3rd was July 2005 and the 4th was in March 2008. This is the 4th targeted flyby, so it's sometimes referred to as E4. It's super exciting, because we'll pass just about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the surface, and fly into the plume at the south pole. This is similar flyby geometry to the pass we did in March 2008 -- but this time, the focus is on the imaging instruments. (Recall in the March flyby - E3 - the... [read full story]