Flying Cassini With Virtual Operations TeamsLaunched on October 15, 1997, Cassini is on a 6.7 year cruise to Saturn, flying by Venus twice, the Earth, and finally Jupiter to gain enough energy to arrive at Saturn on July 1, 2004. At Saturn, Cassini's rich complement of 12 science instruments will spend four years taking observations of Saturn's rings, atmosphere, magnetosphere, icy satellites, and large moon, Titan.