U.S. spacecraft readies for fiery plunge into Saturn after 13-year mission

[webfact]

U.S. spacecraft readies for fiery plunge into Saturn after 13-year mission

By Ian Simpson

 

The spacecraft Cassini is pictured above Saturn's northern hemisphere prior to making one of its Grand Finale dives in this NASA handout illustration obtained by Reuters August 29, 2017. NASA/Handout via REUTERS

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. space agency's Cassini spacecraft will end its 13-year mission to Saturn in mid-September by transmitting data until the final moment before it plunges into the ringed planet's atmosphere, officials said on Tuesday.

 

Cassini, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, will make the last of 22 farewell dives between the planet's rings and surface on Sept. 15. The spacecraft will then burn up as it heads straight into the gas giant's crushing atmosphere.

 

Cassini's final dive will end a mission that provided groundbreaking discoveries that included seasonal changes on Saturn, the moon Titan's resemblance to a primordial Earth, and a global ocean on the moon Enceladus with ice plumes spouting from its surface.

 

"The mission has been insanely, wildly, beautifully successful, and it's coming to an end in about two weeks," Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist, said on a telephone conference call with reporters from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

 

Cassini's final photo as it heads into Saturn's atmosphere will likely be of propellers, or gaps in the rings caused by moonlets, said project scientist Linda Spilker.

 

The spacecraft will provide near real-time data on the atmosphere until it loses contact with Earth at 4:54 a.m. PDT (1154 GMT) on Sept. 15, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

 

Spilker said Cassini's latest data on the rings had shown they had a lighter mass than forecast. That suggests they are younger than expected, at about 120 million years, and thus were created after the birth of the solar system, she said.

 

During its final orbits between the atmosphere and the rings, Cassini also studied Saturn's atmosphere and took measurements to determine the size of the planet's rocky core.

 

Cassini has been probing Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, and its entourage of 62 known moons since July 2004. It has provided enough data for almost 4,000 scientific papers.

 

Since the craft is running low on fuel, NASA is crashing it into Saturn to avoid any chance Cassini could someday collide with Titan, Enceladus or any other moon that has the potential to support indigenous microbial life.

 

By destroying the spacecraft, NASA will ensure that any hitchhiking Earth microbes still alive on Cassini will not contaminate the moons for future study.

 

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-08-30

[rijb]

An amazing mission.  It's planning and execution are very impressive.

Edited August 30, 2017 by rijb

[GinBoy2]

Stuff like this just make all my tax $ seem worthwhile. Fantastic science, awesome mission.

 

Pains me when I read NASA basically begging for funding from Congress. The Federal Gov wastes money on a myriad of worthless stuff, yet this, which actually delivers truly amazing stuff is constantly on the edge.

[wombat]

'will not contaminate'.......meh, if they do, terra forming started at that instant.

Edited August 30, 2017 by wombat

[sevenhills]

Total nonsence.

[bdenner]

38 minutes ago, sevenhills said:

Total nonsence.

And a wall between the USA and Mexico is pure bliss!

[BuaBS]

So the Saturnians will see their first alien ship crashing . They can call it area 51.

 

But it's true , it's a shame to waste trillions of printed $$ on propping up stock & bond markets , making the 1 % even richer , while NASA could waste it just as good on spacecrafts going to other planets.

[GinBoy2]

2 hours ago, BuaBS said:

So the Saturnians will see their first alien ship crashing . They can call it area 51.

 

But it's true , it's a shame to waste trillions of printed $$ on propping up stock & bond markets , making the 1 % even richer , while NASA could waste it just as good on spacecrafts going to other planets.

To put it in perspective. TARP was authorized for $700B to prop up banks that had precipitated their own downfall, and most of the global economy,

NASA on the other hand has a budget of $18B

 

Tell me which one has actually produced more good for mankind

[PeCeDe]

3 hours ago, BuaBS said:

So the Saturnians will see their first alien ship crashing . They can call it area 51.

 

But it's true , it's a shame to waste trillions of printed $$ on propping up stock & bond markets , making the 1 % even richer , while NASA could waste it just as good on spacecrafts going to other planets.

Would be mildly amusing if the last message from Cassini was, "Now can you please $#%@ off and leave us alone!"

[boomerangutang]

Mankind went out of Africa - two major migrations.

Man then spread north, east and west.  Bumped in to Neanderthals in what's now Europe. Crossed over from Asia to the Americas.  Hopscotched across the Pacific.

 

Now our species is testing the waters of planets in our solar system - or at least putting robots out there.  It's a natural progression.   One ship (Earth) is sinking. It's not too late to make plans to get to another place where, hopefully, our species and the species we bring us (including hitchhikers, like intestinal flora) can continue to live, while the Earth slowly losses it's ability to support our trashy species.

 

Note: even if nuclear armageddon happens, not all species will be wiped out.  Not at all.  Many species will muddle through, and so it goes......

[Trouble]

Always amazing to see such negative comments about something that only brings knowledge to mankind.  Who knows they might just learn things that will help Earth survive a little longer. 

[Stargeezr]

Congratulations to NASA and another very successful mission. Great to see all the pictures that Cassini has taken. Imagine!  There are still people who truly believe that man has not gone the moon..

  I hope there will be many missions that are also successful, including the missions to the moon to set up a colony and make sure that they can build structures and produce O2 from the water. Mars is so far away that if they get there unprepared, The mission will be a disaster and a failure.

Geezer

 

 

[bert bloggs]

Amazing ,it took 17 years to get to Saturn and people think that aliens visit our planet all the time , and make contact with some of the locals then go home .. 

[BuaBS]

11 hours ago, Trouble said:

Always amazing to see such negative comments about something that only brings knowledge to mankind.  Who knows they might just learn things that will help Earth survive a little longer. 

What useful knowledge has going to those planets and moons brought "mankind" ?

[boomerangutang]

1 minute ago, BuaBS said:

What useful knowledge has going to those planets and moons brought "mankind" ?

Tang.

 

Seriously though. We habitate but one planet, among trillions in the Universe.  Earth is getting so crowded and polluted that some people have devolved to killing each other for no apparent reason.  There are many reasons for wanting to know about outer space, but on a purely survival-of-the-species level, it's incumbent for our one species to find ways to travel to, and survive on other planets.  Surveying the solar system is a step in that direction.

[BuaBS]

7 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

Tang.

 

Seriously though. We habitate but one planet, among trillions in the Universe.  Earth is getting so crowded and polluted that some people have devolved to killing each other for no apparent reason.  There are many reasons for wanting to know about outer space, but on a purely survival-of-the-species level, it's incumbent for our one species to find ways to travel to, and survive on other planets.  Surveying the solar system is a step in that direction.

The virus that is humanity should stay in the confines of this planet.

If you want to travel and explore new planets , watch SF movies or in the future do it in VR.

[GinBoy2]

4 hours ago, BuaBS said:

What useful knowledge has going to those planets and moons brought "mankind" ?

Understanding of the universe, the creation of life on earth! 

I'm sure there were people like you who questioned why Einstein, Newton, Archimedes did what they did.

 

Humanity is what we are by our quest to understand life and science beyond what we can see with our eyes

[55Jay]

5 hours ago, BuaBS said:

What useful knowledge has going to those planets and moons brought "mankind" ?

I'm not a space geek or a NASA groupie, but found the space exploration "spin off" page interesting.

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html

 

I did want to ask... do you believe the Earth is round or flat?

 

[BuaBS]

7 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

Understanding of the universe, the creation of life on earth! 

I'm sure there were people like you who questioned why Einstein, Newton, Archimedes did what they did.

 

Humanity is what we are by our quest to understand life and science beyond what we can see with our eyes

What , you still not understand the creation of life on earth  or the meaning of it ?

Einstein , Newton nor Archimedes sent spacecrafts to the planets in our solar system.

"Humanity is what we are by our quest to understand life and science beyond what we can see with our eyes " .... joking right ?

 

5 hours ago, 55Jay said:

I'm not a space geek or a NASA groupie, but found the space exploration "spin off" page interesting.

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html

 

I did want to ask... do you believe the Earth is round or flat?

 

The spinoffs are from figuring out how to get a spacecraft to the planets , the knowledge from going there is pretty much useless. Who cares if there is an underground ocean on one of the moons . Maybe in the far , far future when "mankind" can go there , it could be important.

All the spinoff's would have been discovered anyway , maybe some years later .

I did want to ask... do you believe the Earth is round or flat? 555 !

 

[GinBoy2]

1 minute ago, BuaBS said:

What , you still not understand the creation of life on earth  or the meaning of it ?

Einstein , Newton nor Archimedes sent spacecrafts to the planets in our solar system.

"Humanity is what we are by our quest to understand life and science beyond what we can see with our eyes " .... joking right ?

 

The spinoffs are from figuring out how to get a spacecraft to the planets , the knowledge from going there is pretty much useless. Who cares if there is an underground ocean on one of the moons . Maybe in the far , far future when "mankind" can go there , it could be important.

All the spinoff's would have been discovered anyway , maybe some years later .

I did want to ask... do you believe the Earth is round or flat? 555 !

 

Dude, clearly you are in the flat earth, fake science, climate change denial wing of society. So you have a good life, but clearly this is a discussion going nowhere

[boomerangutang]

4 hours ago, BuaBS said:

The virus that is humanity should stay in the confines of this planet.

If you want to travel and explore new planets , watch SF movies or in the future do it in VR.

It's easy to find fault with humanity.  ....any species, for that matter.  A martin is furry and cute to a little girl, but to a robin it's a predator which can bite its head off in 3 seconds.

 

I wouldn't doubt, when Colombus (Latin Amer. spelling) was talking up his wild-eyed idea of sailing west and chancing falling off the end of the earth, over a giant waterfall into the mouths of sea dragons, .....some of the people he mentioned it to, scoffed.

 

Yet that's what species do, .....they venture to go further afield.  Most large mammals have done the same, though in their own fashion.  For example; there are rhinos in Sumatra which are near identical to those in south Africa.   Humans have the ability (some would say 'now', others would say in 20 or 30 years) to put a self-containing colony on Mars.  It may not be successful, ....but then again, maybe it will.

 

google an ebook:  Mastodons on Mars, if you want some sci-fi detail. 

[impulse]

5 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

Understanding of the universe, the creation of life on earth! 

I'm sure there were people like you who questioned why Einstein, Newton, Archimedes did what they did.

 

Humanity is what we are by our quest to understand life and science beyond what we can see with our eyes

 

Throughout history, intrepid explorers have expanded the human boundaries, financed by people who wanted to rape, pillage and steal whatever their sponsored journeys found.  You can call it curiosity, but greed's a more accurate characterization.  Sure, we're curious.  But that's not what sent the Spanish, the English, the Dutch or the French sailing into the unknown.

 

And personally, I hope I'm dead before they find a viable way to procreate humanity away from earth.  Because I won't be on that ship.  Nobody I know or love will be on that ship.  And probably, nobody they know, either.  But just the fact that there's an alternative to earth will drive greedy people to accelerate the destruction here.  If nobody I know and love is alive, I don't really give a rat that "human kind" will have gone extinct (probably at our own hands) in a few centuries or so.

 

 

[luk AJ]

Look what happened when aliens crashed a contaminated space ship on our planet nearly 4 billion years ago...


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[BuaBS]

6 hours ago, impulse said:

I don't really give a rat that "human kind" will have gone extinct (probably at our own hands) in a few centuries or so.

Hopefully much sooner .

And let's hope interplanetary & interstellar space radiation is the barrier humans can never ever breach.

[luk AJ]

Hopefully much sooner .
And let's hope interplanetary & interstellar space radiation is the barrier humans can never ever breach.

Humans can not travel too far, radiation, life support etc.. but we humans will create AI combined with advanced robotics. And this will be the final offspring of mankind able to span trillions of lightyears.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[BuaBS]

5 hours ago, luk AJ said:

Look what happened when aliens crashed a contaminated space ship on our planet nearly 4 billion years ago...


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

High time the aliens come back then and clean up their mess .

Or start harvesting what they planted , now 7 billion over ripe and ready to cull , you know like humans do to animals.

 

At least AI doesn't have to kill to survive.

[Guest]

On 30/08/2017 at 10:46 AM, GinBoy2 said:

Stuff like this just make all my tax $ seem worthwhile. Fantastic science, awesome mission.

 

Pains me when I read NASA basically begging for funding from Congress. The Federal Gov wastes money on a myriad of worthless stuff, yet this, which actually delivers truly amazing stuff is constantly on the edge.

NASA has always been the best Ambassador of USA for the rest of the world. 

 

[Guest]

On 30/08/2017 at 5:18 PM, BuaBS said:

So the Saturnians will see their first alien ship crashing . They can call it area 51.

 

But it's true , it's a shame to waste trillions of printed $$ on propping up stock & bond markets , making the 1 % even richer , while NASA could waste it just as good on spacecrafts going to other planets.

The material cost of that spacecraft are around 200-10.000 USD. That's the wasted money. The energy getting the spacecraft to there is few millions, also wasted.

Every other dollar stayed down here, inside US economy. Salaries for people developing the spacecraft, paying them to learn something new. Those salaries paid meals at local restaurants, paid rents for houses, schools, etc.

Those new learnings will someday pay back as patents and licenses. What? We don't know yet. 

 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, impulse said:

And personally, I hope I'm dead before they find a viable way to procreate humanity away from earth.  Because I won't be on that ship.  Nobody I know or love will be on that ship.  And probably, nobody they know, either.  But just the fact that there's an alternative to earth will drive greedy people to accelerate the destruction here.  If nobody I know and love is alive, I don't really give a rat that "human kind" will have gone extinct (probably at our own hands) in a few centuries or so.

That's actually interesting point of different view for mine.

 

I don't really care of any single person, but I do wish the knowledge we as society hold, to go on. Thus, I don't care if anyone I love is on the ship, but I wish that some sort of history of our thinking will be the ship to new horizons.

 

I'm predicting that in the next century, we'll no longer have physical form. Which will make planetary travel much faster and hops from one star system to another still a very long wait.. unless we figure out how to transfer information, much, much faster than the speed of light. 

 

[55Jay]

16 hours ago, BuaBS said:

What , you still not understand the creation of life on earth  or the meaning of it ?

Einstein , Newton nor Archimedes sent spacecrafts to the planets in our solar system.

"Humanity is what we are by our quest to understand life and science beyond what we can see with our eyes " .... joking right ?

 

The spinoffs are from figuring out how to get a spacecraft to the planets , the knowledge from going there is pretty much useless. Who cares if there is an underground ocean on one of the moons . Maybe in the far , far future when "mankind" can go there , it could be important.

All the spinoff's would have been discovered anyway , maybe some years later .

I did want to ask... do you believe the Earth is round or flat? 555 !

 

"Maybe in the far , far future when "mankind" can go there , it could be important."

 

That's a logical fallacy.  If "mankind" doesn't explore and learn along the way, those "could be important" things won't be there when we get there.  Accumulating data and knowledge is a progressive process.  "Mankind" may not understand the import of everything they are learning now, but may be the key to understanding at some point in the "far far future". 

 

The Earth is round-ish.