The Cassini mission ended its journey on September 15, 2017 by entering Saturn’s atmosphere, concluding 13 years of exploration around the planet Saturn. The ‘Cassini’ orbiter and its ‘Huygens’ module were a joint project of the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Europe (ESA) and Italy (ASI).
After 20 years since its launch on October 15, 1997 and 13 years of successful space exploration, the Cassini mission lived its last breath entering the planet’s atmosphere. Due to the near depletion of the probe’s fuel, which would leave it uncontrollable, its destruction was planned to prevent it from causing biological contamination on Titan or Enceladus. On Friday, September 15, 2017, it penetrated Saturn, and was destroyed in the upper layers of the atmosphere. This last phase was baptized by NASA as the Grand Finale.
The controlled ‘suicide’ of the Cassini spacecraft ensured that it did not end up falling on Enceladus or Titan, thus avoiding its contamination of the moons, especially Enceladus, so that its seabed and its signs of hydrothermal activity remain pristine for future exploration.
How was your last trip?
The Cassini space probe headed toward its September 15 crash on Saturn, following a final and distant flight of the giant moon Titan .
This distant encounter is informally known as “the goodbye kiss” by mission engineers, because it provides a gravitational push that sends the spacecraft toward its dramatic end in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. Cassini slightly decreased its orbit around Saturn, which in turn reduced the height of its flight over the planet so that the spacecraft approached Saturn’s atmosphere where friction with the atmosphere caused it to burn like a meteor. it was.
The spacecraft has made hundreds of passes over Titan during its 13-year tour of the Saturn system, some at close range and some, like this one, more distant.
“ This final encounter is a bittersweet goodbye , but as it has done throughout the mission, Titan’s gravity is sending Cassini back where we need it to go,” said Earl Maize, Cassini Project Manager at the Propulsion Laboratory. NASA jet in Pasadena, California (USA), days before the Grand Final.
The final moments
NASA released a streaming video of Cassini’s ‘death’ entering Saturn’s atmosphere. One year after the media event, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has won the Emmy Award for Best Original Interactive Program for its coverage of the ‘Grand Finale’ of the Cassini mission on Saturn.
No spacecraft has ventured this close to the planet so far.
Goodbye, Cassini.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
