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Originally Posted by Jerry
As you know, to the first order, orbits are not a function of the mass of the orbiter, so using Newton's mechanics to plunk Cassini into an orbit does not test this concept.
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We are not talking about the orbiter's mass. We are talking about Saturn's and Titan's mass. And if we would have miscalculated them by a factor of two, Cassini and Huygens would be anywhere, but not in orbit around Saturn or sitting on Titan's surface. Compared with planetary masses, our spacecrafts masses are neglectible - which saves us a lot of complicated maths.