Saturn mission success

CASSINI

Almost 20 years after the launch, NASA's (Cassini) aircraft will soon finish its mission by the deepest plunge in Saturn's atmosphere in which it will eventually burn.

After six months of exploration of previously unknown areas, Cassini will soon begin to descend into the upper parts of Saturn's atmosphere, after which it will burn in on September 15.

In recent months, she flew between Saturn's rings and the outer edges of his atmosphere, for the first time in history. These maneuvers were excessive in the earlier phases of the mission as damage to the aircraft could have occurred.

The last five orbits will allow scientists to see Saturn look from the inside and get high-resolution rings, scientist Scott Edington said.

"We are so close to rings and planets that we begin to look at the structure of individual rings," he said.

Scientists realized a few years ago that the craft would remain fuel free in the near future. They wanted the mission not only to bring the mission to an end but also to learn something else, so they decided on such a "big finale".

Kasini was launched on October 15, 1997, together with the Huygens probe. He sat for Saturn for almost seven years.

Sonya Huygens was built by the European Space Agency. Kaqsini dropped it down in 2005 to Titan, one of Saturn's moons that is very similar to Earth. This was the first time its surface was discovered. "Only that mission has changed the way NASA explores where life could be," Edington said.

Retirement scientist James Oberg said that Kasini had shown more than enough reason to return to Saturn. "Kasini's role on Saturn was to fill in gaps and discover new secrets," he said.

He believes that Saturn's future composition could be a source of resources such as water for climate change projects on planets such as Mars to make them habitable. "The water around Saturn is easiest to use and transport further," he said.

Cassini is important because it has shown the world of things that people have not even thought of before that they could exist on that planet. "I think it's Cassini's legacy," Edington said.