Why is T-8 the Ninth Flyby of Titan and Not the Eighth?
In designing the original Cassini-Huygens mission, mission planners named every Titan flyby in a straightforward manner: T-1, T-2, T-3 and so on. However, during the spacecraft’s seven-year journey to the ringed planet, engineers uncovered a communication problem between the spacecraft and the probe that could have cost the loss of a significant amount of the data transmitted by the probe to the orbiter. Engineers realized that to be able to receive the data sent by Huygens, the closing rate between the probe and the orbiter during the relay period had to be reduced. Planners solved the issue by shortening the first two orbits around Saturn and adding a third orbit. The third orbit provided the required geometry for a successful Huygens mission and brought the orbiter back to the original orbital plan as soon as possible. At that point, mission planners could have renamed every orbit or only change the names of the modified first three orbits. Because a lot of products — such as sprea
