Going Out in a Blaze of Glory: Cassini Science Highlights and Grand Finale

- Courtesy of the Solar System Ambassadors

Cassini’s Grand Finale: Over half done and more to come. The international Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was launched on October 15, 1997 and had a marathon 13-year 2-billion-mile journey to the distant planet Saturn. The 23-foot tall, 14-foot wide, 6-ton spacecraft is the largest most sophisticated outer planet spacecraft ever built, and is in its 13th year of operation in orbit around the planet Saturn. Today's talk will briefly cover an overview of the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn, but will focus on the exciting Grand Finale (the last 22 orbits of the mission where the spacecraft has been flying inside the rings – right over Saturn’s cloud tops). We’ll talk about what has been happening during the first part of the Cassini Grand Finale and some teasers of what is still to come.

Speaker:

Trina Ray received a B.S. in physics/astronomy option from Cal State Northridge and her master's degree in astronomy from San Diego State University. She has held many positions on Cassini during her 21 years on the mission, including instrument operations engineer, science system engineer, and currently as Cassini's Science Planning and Sequencing Team deputy and the Titan Orbiter Science Team co-chair. She was one of the key strategic planners of the Grand Finale Mission.