The Cassini Mission to Saturn was one of the most ambitious and successful explorations of our planetary system, with astonishing discoveries of planetary storms, methane lakes on Titan, geysers on the tiny moon Enceladus, telltale signals of Saturn's internal structure from patterns in the ring system, to name just a few. Dr. French was a member of the Cassini Radio Science team since the mission began in 1990, eventually launching from Earth in 1997 and reaching Saturn in 2004, orbiting the planet until it was intentionally crashed into Saturn in 2017. Dr. French will provide an insider's view of this international mission, from the early planning until the end of the mission, highlighting both the science and the human side modern space exploration.
Dr. Richard French is a Senior Research Scientist at Space Science institute in Boulder, Colorado (USA) and Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at Wellesley College. He is a planetary astronomer with a strong interest in the rings and atmospheres of the giant planets. He has traveled the world making observations of stellar occultations by Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, and Pluto, and he comes to India hoping to observe an occultation by Uranus and its rings for the first time since 2006, in anticipation of a planned Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission in the coming decades.