Cassini Says Goodbye with a Glorious Finale

After orbiting Saturn for 13 years, the Cassini probe will spend its last 42 orbits moving closer and closer to the rings. A single dust grain could end it all.

At a speed of 121,600 km/h, the Cassini space probe is approaching the orbit of Saturn’s Titan moon. As the craft passes by the moon, the heavenly body’s field of gravity gently nudges the probe into a new path heading directly towards Saturn’s surface. With the manoeuvre, Cassini signs its own death sentence. A few days later, the 6-m-tall and 4-m-wide space probe speeds through the ring planet’s atmosphere. Unprotected from the intense heat development, the spacecraft burns up.

The crash is carefully choreographed by astronomers from the space agencies of NASA and ESA, who will be watching on 15 September 2017, as Cassini flies to its death, ending its 20 year space mission.

En route, the craft has provided scientists with detailed new knowledge about the ring planet and its moons. Cassini has mapped out the huge storms that ravage Saturn’s surface and taken close-ups of the planet’s many moons – particularly Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and the sixth largest, Enceladus.

However, Cassini has not yet sent its last images and measurements back to Earth. The very last data will be collected during the spacecraft’s grand finale, during which it will fly its 22 last orbits around Saturn.

Once a week since late April 2017, the probe has dived into the gap between the innermost ring and Saturn’s surface to take a closer look at the rings and the make-up of the planet's atmosphere.

Cassini’s mission into the unknown void is a risky one. If the spacecraft hits as much as one particle the size of a sand grain at a

speed of 100,000+ km/h, the craft and its instruments could be destroyed. However, astronomers believe that it is worth the risk, as the probe will be closer to Saturn’s rings and atmosphere than ever before. The new data could shed light on some of the planet’s remaining mysteries, such as the age of the rings.

IMPORTANT MISSION

The full name of the space mission is CassiniHuygens – after astronomers Giovanni Cassini, who discovered the separation of Saturn’s rings, and Christiaan Juygens, who discovered the Titan moon.

Cassini-Huygens is one of NASA’s highprofile missions, i.e. the space agency's most expensive and prestigious expeditions. In October 1997, the spacecraft were launched

PROBE BURNS UP IN THE ATMOSPHERE 4 ON 15 SEPTEMBER 2017, the craft will enter Saturn's atmosphere only to burn up. The 20 year mission will end in a blaze to prevent the probe from landing on Saturn's moons, contaminating them with microbes from Earth.