NASA's Cassini Spacecraft just received an Emmy nomination

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honors NASA's Cassini spacecraft for an Emmy Award for diving into the upper atmosphere of Saturn. Nicknamed Cassini's "Grand Finale", it involved sending the probe dive into the totally unexplored area between Saturn's rings and its boiling atmosphere, a live event covered

Cassini is nominated in the Interactive Program category Original Remarkable. recognizes the multi-month campaign that NASA has launched to celebrate the many years of accomplishment of this important spacecraft. The Cassini-Huygens mission began in 1997 and finally arrived at Saturn in 2004, after spending 13 years studying this mysterious gas giant.

As Cassini arrived at the end of his life, NASA decided to use the spacecraft. make one last dive into the atmosphere of Saturn, which had the added benefit of preventing the spacecraft from contaminating one of Saturn's many moons. This is important because scientists believe that there could be a potential for life on Titan and Enceladus in particular

The complete NASA statement follows:

The Academy of Arts and Science of Television Names NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. for its extraordinary original interactive program covering the grand finale of the Cassini mission to Saturn, including news, the web, education, television and social media

In 2017, after nearly 20 years in the Space and 13 years revealing the wonders of Saturn, NASA's Cassini orbiter was running out of fuel. In the last act, Cassini started a new mission: his grand finale. This journey into the unknown would end with a spectacular dive into the planet. The JPL has created a multi-month digital campaign to celebrate the scientific and technical achievements of the mission and explain why the spacecraft must reach its end in the skies of Saturn.

Cassini's first daring dive into the unexplored space between the giant planet and its rings The campaign kickoff took place on April 26, 2017. It culminated on September 15, 2017 with a blanket Live from the Cassini dive in the atmosphere of Saturn, the spacecraft returning science to the very last second

. regular updates on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and the Cassini Mission website; several social, web and live television programs in which questions from journalists and the public were answered; a dramatic short film to communicate the story of the mission and preview its end-game; several 360-degree videos, including NASA's first 360-degree livestream of a mission event from the inside of the JPL mission control; an interactive press kit; a regular beat of articles to keep fans up to date with news and features about the people behind the mission; teaching materials aligned with state standards; a celebration of art by amateurs of amateur space; and software to provide real-time tracking of the spacecraft, until its last transmission to the Earth.

The Primetime Emmys will be awarded by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles on September 17. The Creative Arts Emmys, which includes interactive awards, will be presented at a separate ceremony on Saturday, September 15 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles

The Cassini-Huygens Mission is a NASA co-operative project, the ESA (European Space Agency) Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission of NASA's Scientific Missions Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.