The Cassini spacecraft ended its 20-year voyage of discovery with a fiery plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017. We will discuss the engineering and scientific rationale for the mission's final scenario and some of the complexities of an entirely new mission for an aging spacecraft. We will also present highlights from the many amazing findings from the spacecraft's 13 years of exploration in the Saturn system.

Date Published: 8 March 2019
PDF
Proc. SPIE 10910, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXI, 1091002 (8 March 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2517038

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10910:
Free-Space Laser Communications XXXI
Hamid Hemmati; Don M. Boroson, Editor(s)