After a 20 year sojourn in the final frontier , at approximately 5:00 AM PT this morning , NASA ’s Jet Propulsion laboratory miss inter-group communication with the Cassini spacecraft , which had plunged into Saturn ’s atmosphere about an minute and a half prior , cease its 13 - yr geographic expedition of the Saturn system .
“ mayhap a drip of telemetry bequeath , but we just heard the sign from the space vehicle is gone , and within the next 45 second , so will the spacecraft . I hope you ’re all profoundly lofty of this amazing attainment , ” a labor coach at JPL announced moments ago . “ I ’m buy the farm to call this the end of foreign mission . ”
Cassini ’s date with death had been plan for months . The spacecraft only has a few drop of fuel left , and rather than endangerment allow a numb hunk of metallic element to crash into one of Saturn ’s potentially life - harbour moons , NASA decided to send its darling spacecraft into the object of its X - plus exploration . It beamed back data point until it could n’t anymore .
In the hour lead up to its fiery demise , Cassini also charge back afinal pile of images , captured in the last days of its mission . These are Cassini ’s swansong .
Ad astra per aspera , Cassini . We wo n’t forget about you .
Mosaic of#Saturnmade from raw mental image captured by#Cassinion Sept. 13 , 2017 during its#GrandFinaledive.#CassiniInspirespic.twitter.com / tF7CxrFrlX
— Jason Major ( @JPMajor)September 15 , 2017
[ Cassini Saturn ]
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