Cassini was launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on the 15th October, 1997(the year i was born - one of the reasons it means something to me :3). Since the start of its near 20 year long mission, it has collected over 600GB of data on various planets and asteroids. The most detailed colour portrait of Jupiter to date came from Cassini as well. The first man-made craft to land on a body in the outer solar system, the Huygens probe landed on Titan on the 14th January, 2005 and took the first picture of the surface. More info can be found here. (I got lazy)

Cassini's mission is now coming to an end. On the 15th September, the spacecraft will descend into Saturn's atmosphere, transferring all it's last data in realtime before burning up. This fate was decided for the spacecraft so that it would not impose a contamination risk to the many moons around Saturn, specifically Enceladus, which is believed to harbour the ingredients for life.



Farewell. o7