Cassini flashes Saturn146;s rings

The probe late yesterday zipped through Saturn8217;s rings and slowed down to orbiting speed, in a successful conclusion to a seven-year, 3.5 billion-km voyage to explore Saturn.

For 96 minutes, the probe8217;s engines burned to bring its speed down enough to be captured by Saturn8217;s gravitational field. Eighteen minutes later, exactly on schedule, Nasa received another signal from the probe8217;s high-gain antenna indicating that all systems were operating normally and that it was ready to begin its four-year mission to explore Saturn. The craft is made up of a US-built Orbiter Cassini and the European-built probe Huygens. The US contribution was 2.6 billion and the EU, 660 million. ISA supplied the probe8217;s high-gain antenna which channels all communications with Earth. 8212; PTI