The Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan

The Cassini/Huygens mission is a joint endeavor between NASA, the EuropeanSpace Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a spacecraft to perform an extensive exploration of the Saturnian system, including an atmospheric probe to go to the surface of Titan. The spacecraft was launched on October 15, 1997, and now has completed five years of its nearly seven year journey to Saturn. The cruise period has been a relatively passive time for the spacecraft, but an intensely busy one for the flight team. There is now less than two years to go until arrival at Saturn, and a significant portion of the effort deliberately planned for the post-launch period remains to be completed. Ground activities include the development of flight software, ground software, and science observation plans in order to be prepared to operate the mission after arrival at Saturn. This paper provides an update to the mission status and progress over the past year.