NASA Cassini Mission Prepares for “Grand Finale” on This Week @NASA – April 7, 2017

NASA Cassi­ni Mis­sion Pre­pares for “Grand Finale” on This Week @NASA – April 7, 2017



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NASA held a news con­fer­ence April 4 at the Jet Propul­sion Lab­o­ra­to­ry, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from NASA head­quar­ters, to pre­view the final phase of the Cassi­ni spacecraft’s mis­sion to Sat­urn. On April 26, Cassi­ni will begin its “Grand Finale” – a series of deep dives between the plan­et and its rings. No oth­er mis­sion has ever explored this unique region that is so close to the plan­et. Cassi­ni will make 22 orbits that swoop between the rings and the plan­et before end­ing its 20-year mis­sion on Sept. 15, with a final plunge into Sat­urn. The mis­sion team hopes to gain pow­er­ful insights into the plan­et’s inter­nal struc­ture and the ori­gins of the rings, obtain the first-ever sam­pling of Sat­urn’s atmos­phere and par­ti­cles com­ing from the main rings, and cap­ture the clos­est-ever views of Sat­urn’s clouds and inner rings. Also, Next Space Sta­tion Crew Trav­els to Launch Site, New Tar­get Launch Date for Orbital ATK Mis­sion to ISS, Light­foot Vis­its Indus­try Part­ners, Human Explo­ration Rover Chal­lenge, and John Glenn Interred at Arling­ton Nation­al Cemetery.



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