Cassini End of Mission Preview

Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, Jim Green, left, speaks during a press conference previewing Cassini's End of Mission, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Also participating in the press conference were Cassini program manager at JPL, Earl Maize, second from right, Cassini project scientist at JPL, Linda Spilker, second from left, and principle investigator for the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) at the Southwest Research Institute, Hunter Waite, right. Since its arrival in 2004, the Cassini-Huygens mission has been a discovery machine, revolutionizing our knowledge of the Saturn system and captivating us with data and images never before obtained with such detail and clarity. On Sept. 15, 2017, operators will deliberately plunge the spacecraft into Saturn, as Cassini gathered science until the end. The “plunge” ensures Saturn’s moons will remain pristine for future exploration. During Cassini’s final days, mission team members from all around the world gathered at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to celebrate the achievements of this historic mission. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)