NASA's Cassini spacecraft is preparing for the final phase of a 20-year, 2.2-billion-mile mission that has amazed scientists with data and images of the planet Saturn, its rings and its moons.
The Grand Finale, as NASA is calling it, begins on April 22 when Cassini will make a final flyby of Saturn's moon Titan, which will "reshape the Cassini spacecraft's orbit so that it begins its final series of 22 weekly dives through the unexplored gap between the planet and its rings," NASA said in a news release this week.
This was a one-way trip for Cassini, which launched in 1997, after its seven-year journey to reach Saturn, but even at the end of its mission, the spacecraft will continue beaming back data and images on the unexplored area between Saturn’s innermost rings as it moves closer to the giant planet.
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