Spacecraft Cassini - the Grand Finale

[Rob L]

Cassini will self-destruct in Saturn's atmosphere on Friday, after two decades in space.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

This link will stream the final moments live.

[Rob L]

15hrs to go. https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

It's quite astounding how JPL and ESA got Cassini to fly within 700km of a moon of Saturn so far away, without hitting it, and then collect gases, discover new moons, find new rings. And all with a 20-year-old piece of hardware and fuel.

Oh, and successfully drop the ESA probe Huygens on to Titan as well.

To even get there, after launch they had to sling the spacecraft around Venus and the Sun a couple of times (it took two years just for it to pass Earth just 700 miles above our heads again!)

I find it fascinating Wide-eyed fascinating!

Rob

[Brian in SLC]

I worked the Cassini mission on the Titan IVB rocket. October '97 launch from the Cape. Good times! Humidity with a side of alligators...

Was the only non-DOD payload launched on a Titan IV. I remember a modest amount of controversy due to the RTG's on board in the Centaur for the spacecraft. Became somewhat public that they were the standard nuclear versions and there was a risk if the Titan had gone high order on/near the pad, then glowing hot plutonium pellets could have been scattered about the country side. Thankfully...that didn't happen (we had a perfect record off the pad for Titan IVB...yay!).

I still have the mission patch kickin' around...and...my current coffee cup sports ATK Titan IVB SRMU production completion January 2002.