KSC-97PC1278

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF), Charley Kohlhase, Cassini's science and mission design manager, who oversaw the development of the Digital Video Disk (DVD), discusses it with members of the press. To Kohlhase's left are Richard J. Spehalski, Cassini project manager, and Hamid Hassan, the European Space Agancy Huygens manager. Kohlhase holds the high-tech data disk that will be installed on the Cassini spacecraft. More than 616,400 signatures from 81 countries around the world are on the disk. The Cassini spacecraft is being prepared for launch on Oct. 6, 1997. It will be launched on an Air Force Titan IV/Centaur launch vehicle on an international scientific mission to the planet Saturn. It is destined to arrive at Saturn in July 2004. The Cassini mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C., by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif