LOS ANGELES — After 13 years of observing Saturn, its rings and its myriad moons, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is less than three weeks away from a fiery, brutal end. Early in the morning on Sept. 15 the aging spacecraft will hurl itself into Saturn’s atmosphere at speeds of more than 75,000 mph. It’s a deliberate death plunge from which it has no hope of returning. Within three minutes of diving into Saturn’s tenuous upper layers, the two-story-tall spacecraft will be torn apart. Then it will melt. Then it will vaporize. In the end, Cassini will become part of the very planet it has studied for more than a decade. “I like to say it’s going out in a blaze of glory,” said Linda Spilker of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, the project scientist for the mission.
For Cassini Spacecraft, The End Is Near
Deborah Netburn - Tribune News Service, Portland Press Herald
Wed, 08/30/2017 - 4:35pm
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