Celestia Forums

Hey all

It's here... Cassini version 2! The original (provided by Darkmiss) was the starting point from which I built this new model. It has a number of big improvements, namely:

• Smaller file size
• Coloured parts
• Huygens probe attached, & it detaches at the correct time
• Proper centre of gravity (this is a problem in many spacecraft models)

Here's an animated gif to show the centre of gravity problem fixed:

(Links to a full size image-above is 25% size)

I used 5 transparent cylinders, along the x, y & z axes of the model to balance the rotation along the centre of the HGA dish. This makes it appear to rotate about a proper centre of gravity.

You can download this model (and an ssc to show the change between huygens and no-huygens) from the bottom of the spacecraft page on my website http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackcelestia/

But check out a few more screenshots first...

With Huygens attached:



Without Huygens



Enjoy!

Great work Jack, looks great
Ill remove the older file from my web site now.

ok an update about the xyz orbit...

I read on the cassini website http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov some time ago, that the release dat for huygens had been changed to one orbit later, and cassini's distance from titan at the time of huygens' landing would be about 10 times further than originally planned.

The current horizons trajectory doesn't show this, so obviously they haven't got the updated trajectory from the cassini team yet... The huygens trajectory hasn't been updated either. Theres no point putting up an xyz on my site which is definitely wrong, so until they update cassini I won't bother adding it to my site.

Looks great Jack...

bh.