Health physics innovations developed during Cassini for future space applications

There has been a long history of space missions involving Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) devices starting with the Transit 4A Spacecraft (1961), on through the Apollo, Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Galileo, Ulysses, Mars Pathfinder, and most recently, Cassini (1997). All of these Major Radiological Source (MRS) missions were processed at the Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral Air Station (KSC/CCAS) Launch Site in full compliance with program and regulatory requirements. The cumulative experience gained supporting these past missions has led to significant innovations which will be useful for bench-marking future MRS ground processing