The Cassini spacecraft began its eleven-year mission to Saturn on October 15, 1997. The spacecraft is powered by Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators and Light Weight Radioisotope Heating Units comprised primarily of plutonium-238 as fuel. Due to the potential for a radiation release in the event of a launch accident, the US Department of Energy deployed a contingency response team to Cape Canaveral to support the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the Cassini launch. The team was comprised of radiation monitoring and assessment teams, a communications/logistics team, and a team of Field Analysis System for Emergency Response (FASER) Geographic Information System personnel. FASER is a system developed around Arc/Info and Arcview for integrating and analyzing spatial information for nuclear emergency response activities. FASER operators integrated data from radiological prediction models, background radiation measurements, and a global positioning system-based Flight Path Recovery System for monitoring real-time aircraft locations. With this system, spatial data met the need to be processed and presented to mission managers quickly during the hours preceding launch.
Application of GIS for Cassini Launch Support
1998
8 pages
Report
No indication
English
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