**1. Introduction**

Unlike conventional aircraft which can be serviced when breakdowns occur, spacecraft launched outside of Earth's gravity well, whether they be Earth-orbiting satellites or inner solar system/interplanetary spacecraft, all robotic vehicles must be equipped to deal with their own unique, often hostile flight environments in order to accomplish their science objectives. Once launched, these spacecraft cannot return to earth for servicing or maintenance, but must maintain self-sufficient systems that have been designed to preclude problems, whether introduced by human error, flight environment, erroneous commanding by the operations team, or the large lag interval between ground-station commanding and receipt by the spacecraft. Spacecraft must make the journey through the vastness of space as self-sufficient systems, as they safeguard themselves against the many influences that will introduce challenges in maintaining internal spacecraft health and functionality.

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*Aerospace Engineering*

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After launch, spacecraft devices are typically deployed, its systems configured, and subsystem devices are verified to be working properly. During the mission, the propulsion system is utilized to target the spacecraft, adjusting its trajectory to meet the intended science targets. These target objectives typically consist of orbiting or flying by an object such as an asteroid, moon, or planet, or even landing the spacecraft (or its probe) on the target object. A suite of scientific instruments is typically carried onboard the spacecraft to perform many scientific tasks throughout the lifetime of the mission. For all National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spacecraft, the Deep Space Network (DSN) radio telescope array provides the method for the ground-based Spacecraft Operations Flight Support (SOFS) team of engineers to stay in contact with the spacecraft throughout its mission. "Uplinked" commands are sent to the vehicle while the spacecraft's "downlink" telemetry stream provides detailed information about its many systems, collected science data, and of what it encounters throughout its voyage. As an example, this chapter outlines the challenges faced by the Cassini/Huygens Mission-to-Saturn interplanetary spacecraft mission, the preparations that were necessary to support it, and the actual flight experiences during its 20-year journey through our solar system to Saturn.
