LOS ANGELES_Great news for Cassini fans: The NASA spacecraft sent word this week that it successfully completed its first pass through the uncharted territory between Saturn and its rings.
More than 100 members of the Cassini team and their families had gathered in the Von Karman Auditorium at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge on Wednesday night to await the news.
The first signal indicating that the spacecraft was alive came right on time at 11:55 p.m. Pacific, in the form of a green line projected on a screen.
Todd Barber, Cassini's lead propulsion engineer, did an old-fashioned fist pump. The auditorium erupted in cheers.
About 10 minutes later, another set of signals confirmed that Cassini was beaming science and engineering data across more than 750 million miles of space from the Saturn system to Earth.
To protect Cassini from damaging encounters with dust or particles from Saturn's rings, mission planners at JPL had it fly through the region with its dish-shaped antenna leading the way. That shielded the spacecraft's more delicate instruments from unexpected danger.
However, that also meant the antenna couldn't do its usual job of communicating with Earth. So the folks at NASA had to wait about 24 hours until Cassini had cleared the danger zone to find out if the spacecraft had survived intact.
To help staffers pass the anxious late-night hours, JPL organized activities that included a choral performance, science talks and lots of coffee. And, of course, the first peek at Cassini's most extreme close-ups of Saturn.
In a statement released Thursday, the project manager said he was delighted.
"No spacecraft has ever been this close to Saturn before," Earl Maize said. "We could only rely on predictions, based on our experience with Saturn's other rings, of what we thought this gap between the rings and Saturn would be like.
"I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape."
Cassini has been flying around the Saturn system for 13 years now, but it had never passed between the planet and its rings until now.
Computer models suggested that the area should be relatively free of dust and particles that might damage the spacecraft, but until it actually made its first dive into the region, nobody could know for sure that it would pass through unharmed.
"We have a saying in space flight," said Erick Sturm, lead mission planner for Cassini. "Whenever we go where we haven't been before, we're probably going to be surprised."
Cassini has 21 more orbits through this never-before-explored space planned. The next is scheduled for Tuesday.
