NASA's Cassini Probe Will Finally Meet Its End As It Burns Into Saturn's Atmosphere On Friday

The day has finally come, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will take its final plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere. After 13 years of observing the planet and its moons, and occasionally diving through its rings, the probe has reached the end of its lifetime.

A representational image of Cassini diving through Saturn's rings

In October 1997, Cassini left Earth for its distant goal, as part of a $3.2 billion project involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Now, nearly 20 years later, it’s running out of fuel reserves. Because of this, NASA is going to direct the spacecraft into Saturn’s atmosphere where it will burn up on re-entry.

NASA is still unsure whether there’s any alien life on Saturn or its moons. And no matter how microscopic, the space agency can’t risk damaging any of it with a defunct probe hurtling around in the vicinity. The idea is that a dead probe could easily be knocked out of orbit by the competing gravitational fields and then crash into a moon like Enceladus or Titan, both promising locations for the possibility of life, taking out a chunk of the surface. It’s for this reason that NASA believes it’s best to just destroy the faithful probe.?

In April, NASA directed Cassini into the final stage of its mission, called the ‘Grand Finale’. The spacecraft is currently on a path between Saturn and its rings, going closer than ever before. After its 22nd Grand Finale orbit of Saturn, taking pictures all along the way, the planet’s gravity will eventually pull Cassini in on Friday. Once that happens, it’ll take only five to six minutes before the probe falls apart and burns up, even as it’s sending make images and data back to Earth in real time. “Some of these analyses will take years for scientists to figure out,” Cassini’s deputy project scientist Scott Edgington tells The Verge. “I would expect to still hear a lot more from Cassini in the coming years.”

A representational image of Cassini burning up in Saturn's atmosphere

“We’re calling it a goodbye kiss.”

“A lot of us have spent a lot of time on this project and we’re just in love with Saturn and its system and the spacecraft itself,” Edgington adds. “And here we are: it’s not going to exist after next week. It’s going to be bittersweet and I can imagine a lot of tears being shed after that final signal is lost.”