CICLOPS Joins SSI

The Space Science Institute (SSI) of Boulder, Colorado announces the appointment of Dr. Carolyn Porco, the leader of the Imaging Science team for the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft and an Adjunct Professor at both the University of Colorado and the University of Arizona, to its senior research and management staff. Her move to SSI follows a distinguished 18-year research and teaching career at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and a two-year stint at the Southwest Research Institute, also in Boulder. Porco directs the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS), the hub of Cassini Imaging Science team activities. CICLOPS, together with SSI, has relocated to larger facilities in the Tierra Centre at 4750 Walnut Street. The new, larger accommodations will help meet a growing demand for more office and laboratory space to house CICLOPS operations, which will include the processing and dissemination of Cassini images and movies to the public.

The Cassini spacecraft, launched in October 1997, will be placed in orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004 and begin a six-year mission to observe the planet and its collection of rings and icy moons, including its largest moon Titan. Titan, an organic-rich body the size of Mercury, is expected to yield information relevant to the study of the genesis of life on Earth. Cassini is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.