The Cassini Mission to Saturn is one of the most ambitious efforts in planetary space exploration ever mounted. A joint endeavor of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), Cassini is a sophisticated robotic spacecraft orbiting the ringed planet and studying the Saturnian system in detail. Cassini also carried a probe called Huygens, which parachuted to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in January 2005 and return spectacular results.
Cassini completed its initial four-year mission to explore the Saturn System in June 2008, and the first extension, called the Cassini Equinox Mission, in September 2010. Now, the healthy spacecraft is making exciting new discoveries in a second extension called the Cassini Solstice Mission.