The Cassini-Huygens flyby of Jupiter

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft flew by Jupiter on December 30, 2000. The instruments aboard the spacecraft started making scientific observations three months earlier. Joint, collaborative observations were carried out with the teams of other spacecraft, notably Galileo, and with Earth-based observers. An operational overview of the flyby is presented and attention drawn to contributions of the eleven papers of this series which follow. Prime achievements of this campaign have been to better define the present state of fundamental elements of the jovian system, confirming many previously tentative conclusions. Particularly noteworthy is that the interactions between the solar wind and the jovian magnetosphere have been explored far deeper than before, along with the link to the morphology and dynamics of the jovian aurora. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.