Back تقاعد كاسيني Arabic Fin de Cassini Spanish Aposentadoria da Cassini Portuguese Завершення місії Кассіні Ukrainian

Cassini retirement

Artist's concept of Cassini's controlled atmospheric entry into Saturn

The Cassini space probe was deliberately disposed of via a controlled fall into Saturn's atmosphere on September 15, 2017, ending its nearly two-decade-long mission.[1][2][3][4] This method was chosen to prevent biological contamination of any of the moons of Saturn now thought to offer potentially habitable environments.[5] Factors that influenced the mission end method included the amount of rocket fuel left, the health of the spacecraft, and funding for operations on Earth.[6]

Some possibilities for Cassini's later stages were aerobraking into orbit around Titan,[6] leaving the Saturn system,[6] or making close approaches and/or changing its orbit.[6] For example, it could have collected solar wind data in a heliocentric orbit.[3]

  1. ^ Brown, Dwayne; Cantillo, Laurie; Dyches, Preston (September 15, 2017). "NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Ends Its Historic Exploration of Saturn". NASA. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  2. ^ Chang, Kenneth (September 14, 2017). "Cassini Vanishes Into Saturn, Its Mission Celebrated and Mourned". The New York Times. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  3. ^ a b Spilker, Linda (April 1, 2008). "Cassini Extended Missions" (PDF). Lunar and Planetary Institute. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 23, 2008.
  4. ^ Mason, Betsy (February 3, 2010). "Cassini Gets Life Extension to Explore Saturn Until 2017". Wired. Archived from the original on February 9, 2010.
  5. ^ Blabber, Phillipa; Verrecchia, Angélique (April 3, 2014). "Cassini-Huygens: Preventing Biological Contamination". Space Safety Magazine. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
  6. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference cass was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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