Cassini to perform final series of daring maneuvers
The Cassini spacecraft, part of the international Cassini-Huygens mission, is due to start a series of 22 orbits in between Saturn and its rings today, the 26th of April. The ring plane passages pose the final challenge of the mission: having orbited the planet for the last 12 years the spacecraft is set to enter Saturn’s atmosphere on September 15th.
The data gathered in the revolutionary maneuvers are expected to further expand our understanding of the Saturnian environment and the origin of the planet and its rings and moons. Already in 2005 the Huygens probe touched down on the Saturnian moon Titan, which has lead to the insight into its many atmospheric and internal processes. From the combination of the in-situ data recovered by the Huygens probe and remote observations performed...