SPACEPHOTOS

(09/15/1997) --- The Cassini spacecraft, covered by an environmentally controlled protective enclosure, is lifted at Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS), in preparation to mate it to the top of its Titan IV/Centaur launch vehicle. Cassini is an international mission conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The two-story-tall spacecraft, scheduled for launch on Oct. 13, is destined to arrive at Saturn in July 2004, where it will orbit and study Saturn, its rings, moons and magnetic environment in detail over a four-year period. The Cassini mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology