First Light Newsletter November 2002 Welcome to the premier issue of the new monthly e-newsletter from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Cassini: Bring Your Tray Table to an Upright Position NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn is getting to an exciting phase. After looping around the inner solar system for several years to build up enough momentum to fly outward from the Sun, Cassini is now within range to take pictures of Saturn as it makes its final approach to the planet over the coming year and a half. The Cassini team released an image taken in late October when the craft was 285 million kilometers (177 million miles) from the planet. The picture shows the shadow of the planet falling across its famous rings and includes Saturn's largest moon, Titan. More details are on the Cassini home page. It's Flyby Time Not one but two NASA robotic spacecraft are executing flybys this month, making scientific observations of bodies in the solar system as they zoom past. On Saturday, November 2, the Stardust spacecraft will pass within about 3,000 kilometers (about 1,900 miles) of asteroid Annefrank (the event occurs Friday evening in North American time zones). An advance look at the flyby is available in our news release, or from the Stardust home page. The venerable Galileo spacecraft, meanwhile, will add to the record book for its long-lived mission at Jupiter with another first, a flyby of the giant planet's small moon Amalthea on Tuesday, November 5. The orbiter will pass about 160 kilometers (99 miles) above Amalthea's cratered surface -- barely more than half the length of this egg-shaped moon. More details are in our news release or the Galileo home page. Webcast: Robots in Space "Rise of the Machines: Intelligent Robots and Space Exploration" will be the topic of the November talk in JPL's von Karman Lecture Series, offered locally in Pasadena, California, and broadcast live via the web on Thursday, November 21, at 7 p.m. Pacific. The speaker will be Dr. Richard Terrile, program scientist for JPL's Mars Scout program. You can view the webcast live or access the archive later if you miss it. Cool Links Keeping an Eye on Space Rocks Ê(requires Flash 6) Amateur Night in Space New Mars Fun Zone (Including 3-D Rover Game) This Month in Space History Surveyor 6 lands on the Moon (11/11/67) Mariner 9 becomes first spacecraft to orbit another planet (11/14/71) Voyager 1 flies by Saturn (11/12/80) October Highlights What's it like to work at NASA? Our web video series First Person finds out. Spore detectors: check out the news release, profileÊand video. Global SurveyorÊtakes one of the highest-resolution images of Mars. Technical note: Users reading this message in Eudora may need to adjust their viewing preferences in order to view images correctly. If pictures appear garbled, in Eudora try going to Tools > Options, select Viewing Mail and click to select "Use Microsoft's viewer."