Italian participation to interplanetary exploration: The Cassini-Huygens mission

After the successfull launch of October 1997, the Cassini spacecraft which carries the Probe Huygens, is on ifs way to reach the Saturn planetary syst em on July 2004. Purpose of the mission is to perform a very accurate inves tigation on Saturn and its moons, Titan in particular. The implementation o f the program as seen the cooperation of the space agencies of USA, Europe anf Italy. After a general description of the Cassini/Huygens mission, this paper will provide an overview of the Italian participation in scientific, industrial and technology terms. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Lt d. All rights reserved.