Cassini HGA Pattern Calibration

This animation describes the process of calibrating the Cassini spacecrafts main antenna, to optimize signal strength.

"The Cassini spacecraft will be over half a billion miles away from Earth while orbiting Saturn. At this great distance, proper alignment of the HGA is crucial. In order to keep Cassini pointed precisely at Earth, periodic pattern and boresight calibrations are done.
The spacecraft is swept slightly off axis (23 millirads max),
perpendicualr to the Earth. The recieved signal strength is
recorded. This process takes about 6 hours. The point of highest signal intensity is calculated, and the spacecrafts pointing axis' are corrected accordingly.

Cassini Will arrive at Saturn in July, 2004.

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This project was created using POV-Ray v3.5, 3D Studio MAX R4, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Cool Edit Pro,and various perl scripts to help along the way.

The raw data I received needed to be reformatted to be
of any use. This was taken care of by a series of perl
scripts.

The actual data visualization was preformed in POV-Ray, on a bluescreen. The spacecraft model, and background were rendered in 3D Studio. After Effects was used to overlay the bluescreened data from POV-Ray onto the 3D Studio Renderings. The voiceover was recorded in Cool Edit. Final compression of both audio and video was done in Premeire.

For further information about Cassini, visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• Cassini