Managing complexity to maximize science return: Science planning lessons learned from Cassini

Cassini-Huygens ended its four-year prime mission on July 1, 2008. Significant challenges to developing and executing the science plan for the orbiter mission had to be overcome to return a wealth of science data from its tour of the Saturnian system. These operational challenges reflected the complexity of the mission, of the tour, of the spacecraft, of its instruments, and of the ground system environment. This paper discusses in-depth the lessons learned from the science planning operations of Cassini including the multi-step uplink process designed to select, integrate and implement science observations. Aspects of system engineering, spacecraft design, spacecraft subsystems, flight hardware and software, ground software, instrument and science operations that either facilitated or complicated science return are also addressed.