She was named imaging team leader for the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft in 1990. Cassini-Huygens was launched in 1997, arriving at the Saturn system in mid-2004, and dropping off the Huygens probe to the surface of the large moon, Titan, in January, 2005. Thus, Cassini's mission has encompassed a majority (20+ years) of Dr. Porco's adult life.

The Cassini mission was designed in the mid-1980s. It was an ambitious project: International in scope (Europe's ESA built and managed the Huygens probe and its mission to Titan, while NASA-JPL built and managed Cassini's "bus" and the general mission.) It is the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built, bristling with internationally designed experiment packages, over three tons of maneuvering fuel, and heavy plutonium generators to provide nuclear power. The entire spacecraft is over 22 ft. high and over 13 ft. across, weighing over 6 tons. Launched aboard a Titan-IV, the most powerful booster available, the massive spacecraft still had to do a couple of loops around Venus and Earth, using their gravity to help slingshot it towards Saturn. On the way, Dr. Porco was able to hone her imaging skills at Jupiter, where Cassini-Huygens got a final gravity assist towards its goal. Once there, Cassini would to go into orbit, using maneuvering fuel and gravity assists to vary the orbits to encounter moons, rings and planet for four years.

Some of the amazing discoveries so far; Titan's lakes of liquid methane, the moon Enceladus' icy geysers and subsurface ocean; yin-yang moon Iapetus' 13 km high equatorial ridge; Saturn's heretofore unseen rings and unusual weather; Hyperion, a tumbling moon that looks like cosmic coral. Her recent acceptance into the IAAA space art guild was in recognition of her gift for composition, snapping pictures at just the right moment for unusual perspective and color, from a billion miles distance. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin took time off for her talk at SPACEFEST last year, and couldn't contain his enthusiasm.

Carolyn has butted heads with management over her style of photography, which puts imagery ahead of particles and fields data, to provide a more understandable connection to the taxpayer, who ultimately funds projects like this. An example is "Saturn in Eclipse" which not only reveals the vast, true extent of the ring system, but captures the Earth nestled in a gap between the rings. Most people think it is artwork for better or worse, but it is a photograph, with a lot of planning and flawless execution. Still, she had to fight the powers-that-be to maneuver Cassini to capture the scene a billion miles away.

Carolyn was also the driving force behind sending the cremains of Dr. Gene Shoemaker, the father of Planetary Science and a frustrated Apollo-era astronaut, to the moon aboard the Lunar Prospector spacecraft, despite vocal detractors.

Her next assignment is as imaging team member of the New Horizons spacecraft bound for arrival at Pluto in 2015. It is already well beyond Saturn.

TIME: 3:00 PM Saturday Big Room Admission $10