Scientists prepare for an explosion of discoveries in the last six months of Cassini's Saturn mission. The plutonium-borne robot will repeatedly push through an unexplored gap in the planet's famous rings and then do a destructive immersion in the atmosphere this coming September.
According to Spaceflight Now , the last dramatic act has been underway since 2010, when NASA formally approved the plan, using Saturn moon Titan. Fliers and periodic propeller burns to reshape Cassini's orbit around the ringed planet.
Cassini's mission will end with a September 15 dive into Saturn's hydrogen and helium atmosphere after a series of 22 orbits of about a week that pass between the planet's most intimate icy ring and its clouds. The robotic spacecraft will be installed for the last phase of the mission - called the grand finale - with a flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on April 22, followed by the first dive about four days later says Inquisitr.
In many ways, the grand finale of Cassini is like a new mission. The final mission of Cassini is to investigate the interior of Saturn and to measure the magnetic field. It is also going to look for the magnetic dynamo, and try to find out why there is so little, or maybe not, inclination between the axis of the magnetic field and the rotational axis of Saturn.
What is happening there? The record of scientific research planned from April to September is deep, but Cassini first has to survive the journey within the rings. Just the feat of navigating and engineering our way through the gap between the rings and the planet, which in and by itself I consider an engineering triumph.
It is a story that is developed in meeting rooms, memoranda and presentation slides between scientists and engineers working on many space missions. Scientists hungry for new revelations drive more data, while engineers warn of risks and dangers that could overload a spacecraft or instrument.