Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Following a seven-year journey to Saturn, the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini orbiter delivered Europe's Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn's mysterious moon Titan in January 2005, just a few months after becoming the first spacecraft to enter orbit around the giant gas planet.
Since then, Cassini and Huygens have returned a wealth of information on the Saturnian system to the global scientific community, helping us understand the massive planet, its multiple moons and its hauntingly beautiful system of rings.
Starting later this year, the mission will begin its final phase (see Cassini's Grand Finale ) and ESA's superbly sensitive deep-space tracking stations will be called in to help gather crucial radio science data.
[...] "We had to upgrade some software at ESOC, as we discovered that one file used for pointing the antenna did not have enough digits to encode the full distance to Cassini, but the test worked and demonstrated we can catch Cassini's transmissions."
[...] Starting in December and running into July 2017, Cassini will conduct a daring series of orbits in which the spacecraft will repeatedly climb high above Saturn's poles, initially passing just outside its narrow F ring, and then later diving between the uppermost atmosphere and the innermost ring.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 22 2016, @06:48PM
How much would it cost to point every single deep-space antenna that way, just long enough to make sure that we get all the data even if there are last-minute issues?