The launch of NASA's Cassini spacecraft aboard an Air Force Titan IV rocket from Complex 40 remains on schedule for 4:55 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 13.

Today, Cassini was closed out for flight and the nose fairing access doors to the spacecraft were sealed. Close outs of the Titan IV rocket are now underway. The countdown clock in the Launch Operations Control Center will begin counting backward at 2:55 a.m. on Sunday at the T-26 hour mark. The terminal countdown sequence begins at 3:25 p.m., and the mobile service tower will be retracted from around the vehicle at 9:50 p.m. on Sunday night. Loading of the Centaur stage with its complement of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants will begin at 1:45 a.m. on Monday morning.

The weather forecast for Monday calls for a 40% probability of not meeting the launch weather criteria due to a chance of cloudiness, showers, or higher than allowable surface wind. The forecast is unchanged should there be a launch attempt on Tuesday. At the 4:55 a.m. launch time Monday morning there will be scattered clouds, a temperature of approximately 78 degrees, the humidity 93% and Easterly winds at 15-18 knots.

Additional information about Cassini-Huygens is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Cassini will begin orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004, and release its piggybacked Huygens probe about six months later for descent through the thick atmosphere of the moon Titan. Cassini-Huygens is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.