Presentations

From Ellipses to Gravity Assists by Charley Kohlhase This webcast begins with the simple notion of an ellipse, easily created by any young person, then moves on to Kepler's laws and the famous conic sections to slowly build a framework within which to understand how mission designers at JPL work out their special flight paths to the planets. In the early days of space exploration, Hohmann transfer ellipses were used to travel from the Earth to Mars and Venus. With the invention of gravity assist, journeys were soon made possible to the more distant planets, with the Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini missions being prime examples. Click below to download the PDF presentation and RealPlayer Videos. Presentation to accompany videos PDF (438 KB) Trajectory Design and Gravity Assist Videos: Part 1 (40 kbps) Part 2 (40 kbps) Part 3 (40 kbps) Part 4 (40 kbps)

Slide Sets

"The Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn & Titan" 20 color slides depicting Saturn, its rings, Titan, the icy moons of Saturn, the Cassini mission goals, flight path, and spacecraft. Order set JPL-19 "The Saturn System" 20 color slides of Saturn and its neighborhood as seen through the eyes of visiting spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope. Order set JPL-52 "Cassini and Galileo Missions Explore Jupiter" 20 color slides depicting Jupiter and its moons as seen through the eyes of the Cassini spacecraft and the Galileo spacecraft. Order set JPL-55 Available from: Finley Holiday Films $14.00 plus tax & shipping Telephone (800) 345-6707 Fax (310) 693-4756