STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>NASA TV coverage of the end of Cassini\u2019s mission begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT) Friday, Sept. 15.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Thirteen years after reaching Saturn, NASA\u2019s nuclear-powered Cassini spacecraft raced through its 294th and final orbit Thursday, collecting priceless data while hurtling toward a kamikaze-like plunge into the ringed planet\u2019s atmosphere Friday, going out in a blaze of glory to wrap up an \u201cinsanely\u201d successful mission.<\/p>\n<p>Virtually out of propellant, Cassini used a final gravitational nudge \u2014 a \u201cgoodbye kiss\u201d \u2014 from Saturn\u2019s smog-shrouded moon Titan earlier this week to precisely aim itself at a point on the planet\u2019s dayside 10 degrees above the equator.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat final flyby of Titan \u2026 put Cassini on an impacting trajectory and there is absolutely no coming out of it,\u201d said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are going so deep into the atmosphere the spacecraft doesn\u2019t have a chance of coming out. So that final kiss from Titan, that really is our last flyby, and we will enter Saturn\u2019s atmosphere very early on the morning of Sept. 15.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dutifully executing a final set of commands from Earth, Cassini was programmed to snap a final few pictures of Saturn, its vast ring system, Titan and the small moon Enceladus Thursday in what mission managers are calling \u201cthe last picture show,\u201d before turning its large dish antenna toward Earth to transmit the images and other data back to waiting scientists.<\/p>\n<p>Titan and Enceladus, which harbors a saltwater ocean beneath an icy crust, host potentially habitable environments and rather than risk an eventual collision with an out-of-gas Cassini \u2014 and earthly contamination \u2014 NASA managers opted to crash the spacecraft into Saturn to eliminate any possible threat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese final images are sort of like taking a last look around your house or apartment just before you move out,\u201d said Linda Spilker, the Cassini project scientist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. \u201cYou look at your old rooms, and memories across the years come flooding back. In the same way, Cassini is taking a last look around the Saturn system \u2026 and with those pictures come heart-warming memories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cassini cannot send images back during its final descent, but eight of its scientific instruments will be operating and beaming back data in realtime as the spacecraft, its antenna locked on Earth, slams into Saturn\u2019s discernible atmosphere at 6:31 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Traveling at a velocity of 70,000 mph, Cassini\u2019s demise will be quick. Even so, scientists expect a wealth of data during the probe\u2019s final moments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe highest science priority is to sample the atmosphere,\u201d Spilker said. \u201cWe stand to gain fundamental insights into Saturn\u2019s formation and evolution as well as processes that occur in the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Entry will occur when Cassini encounters the first wisps of gasses in the extreme upper atmosphere about 1,190 miles above Saturn\u2019s visible cloud tops, where atmospheric pressure is equivalent to sea level on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Small thrusters will automatically fire to keep Cassini properly oriented, and its antenna locked on Earth, as atmospheric buffeting begins. But within one minute of entry, about 120 miles into the discernible atmosphere, the thrusters will be overwhelmed, Cassini will begin tumbling and telemetry will come to an abrupt end.<\/p>\n<p>A few moments after that, Cassini will be ripped apart and its components utterly destroyed by extreme heating.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt goes really fast,\u201d said spacecraft engineer Julie Webster. \u201cFirst, the (insulation) blankets will burn off, and then we\u2019ll reach the aluminum melting point within about 20 seconds. The iridium will be the last thing to melt, and it will go about 30 seconds after the aluminum. It goes within a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cassini\u2019s final signal, traveling across the solar system at the speed of light \u2014 186,000 miles per second \u2014 will reach a huge antenna in Australia 83 minutes later, at 7:55 a.m. That\u2019s when flight controllers, engineers and scientists gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will know Cassini is well and truly gone.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27238\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27238\" style=\"width: 1280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27238\" src=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/7780_Maize_5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/7780_Maize_5.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/7780_Maize_5-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/7780_Maize_5-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/7780_Maize_5-678x381.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27238\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Milestones in Cassini\u2019s final dive toward Saturn. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe mission has exceeded all of our expectations, done better than we could have ever dreamed,\u201d said Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist at NASA Headquarters. \u201cThe Saturn system is absolutely chock full of amazing worlds of all sizes, and Cassini has been exploring them for the past 13 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve watched the particles in the rings around Saturn collide and glide during their gravitational dance and we\u2019ve confirmed things that we suspected might exist in the Saturn system. But even more pleasantly, we\u2019ve been shocked by things that we never predicted we would find.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like watching a titanic globe-spanning storm develop and move around the entire planet, running into itself like a snake eating its tail. Like discovering a bizarre hexagon-shaped storm around Saturn\u2019s north pole that has persisted for decades. And the discovery of methane seas, lakes, rivers and rain on Titan, where conditions mimic those on Earth in the distant past.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd we were absolutely shocked to learn that tiny, tiny Enceladus has a global liquid water ocean underneath a relatively thin ice crust that\u2019s warmed by hydrothermal activity and has jets of water from that ocean shooting out into space through cracks in the south pole,\u201d Niebur said. \u201cEnceladus may have all of the ingredients needed for life as we know it to currently exist, right now, at this very second.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of its 13-year mission, Cassini has executed 2.5 million commands, carried out 360 engine burns, completed 162 targeted flybys of Saturn\u2019s moons, taken more than 453,000 images and discovered six previously unknown moons, covering 4.9 billion miles since launch in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>Most important, the spacecraft, built in the early 1990s, collected 635 gigabits of data resulting in nearly 4,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe mission has been insanely, wildly, beautifully successful,\u201d Niebur said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s coming to an end. \u2026 I find great comfort in the fact that Cassini will continue teaching us up to the very last second.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Launched in October 1997, Cassini arrived at Saturn in July 2004 and dropped off a lander built by the European Space Agency that successfully completed a parachute descent to the surface of Titan the following January.<\/p>\n<p>Titan is larger than Mercury but its surface is hidden below a thick smog-like atmosphere. The Huygens lander revealed an alien landscape with rounded rocks and boulders under an orange-hued sky while Cassini\u2019s cloud-piercing radar imaging system eventually filled in a global map of the moon that revealed methane lakes, rivers and seas.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_24209\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-24209\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24209\" src=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923-678x678.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/5632_PIA14923-30x30.jpg 30w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-24209\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saturn\u2019s rings obscure part of Titan\u2019s colorful visage in this image from NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft from 2012. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Space Science Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cTo put a probe onto Titan, capture a signal on the way down, land it softly on the surface and play those images back, I still give myself goosebumps just seeing that first image,\u201d Maize said. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since then, Cassini has flown through a complex set of ever-changing orbits, repeatedly using Titan\u2019s gravity to alter its trajectory. Energy from the Titan flybys was the equivalent of 127,000 pounds of propellant, Maize said, enabling views of Saturn and its huge ring system from different perspectives and setting up close flybys of and many of its moons.<\/p>\n<p>But all good things must come to an end.<\/p>\n<p>On April 22, Cassini carried out a Titan flyby that kicked off the \u201cGrand Finale,\u201d putting the spacecraft on a trajectory that repeatedly carried it between the innermost rings and Saturn\u2019s cloud tops and set up a mission-ending impact in the atmosphere on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Grand Finale orbits brought Cassini closer to Saturn and its rings than ever before and gave scientists a unique opportunity to determine the mass of the rings. While those studies are ongoing, it appears the rings may be a relatively young phenomenon and not a relic of Saturn\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n<p>But for many, discoveries about Titan and Enceladus are the icing on the cake, more than justifying the decision to end Cassini\u2019s mission with a dramatic plunge into Saturn\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese two new worlds, Titan and Enceladus, that were so completely revealed to us by Cassini have changed the idea that ocean worlds like Earth and (Jupiter\u2019s moon) Europa are rare in the universe,\u201d Niebur said. \u201cThis, in turn, is changing our views about how prevalent and common habitable environments and even life beyond Earth might truly be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NASA is in the early stages of designing a spacecraft to make repeated flybys of Jupiter\u2019s moon Europa in the 2020s and many hope a follow-on mission to Saturn will someday be mounted to explore Enceladus in more detail.<br \/>\n\u2018<br \/>\n\u201cEnceladus has no business existing,\u201d Niebur said. \u201cAnd yet there it is, practically screaming at us, \u2018look at me! I complete invalidate all of your assumptions about the solar system.\u2019 It\u2019s just been a remarkable opportunity to study Enceladus and unveil the secrets it\u2019s been keeping. It\u2019s an amazing destination.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION NASA TV coverage of the end of Cassini\u2019s mission begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT) Friday, Sept. 15. Thirteen years after reaching Saturn, NASA\u2019s nuclear-powered Cassini spacecraft raced through its 294th and final orbit Thursday, collecting priceless data while hurtling toward a kamikaze-like plunge into the ringed planet\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,1183,1561,1562],"class_list":["post-14338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cassini","tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","tag-planetary-science","tag-saturn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}