Stunning Images of Saturn, Moons From Cassini Mission
A spectacular space exploration mission will end with a dramatic death. The Cassini spacecraft will self-destruct by plunging into Saturn’s atmosphere, ultimately burning up and disintegrating. The planned mid-September dive will be the final farewell for a nearly three-decade-long collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian space agency. It’s been good while it lasted, Saturn.
The Cassini spacecraft launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on October 15, 1997, and spent seven years en route to its target, Saturn. It entered orbit around the ringed planet in 2004 for what was intended to be a four-year mission but was twice extended for a total run of 13 years, or nearly 20 if you count the journey there.
Cassini the first in-depth reconnaissance of Saturn, its moons and its rings. When the mission dropped the Huygens probe on Titan, it was the first to land on the moon of a planet other than Earth. There
