On this day .. the loss of contact with "Cassini" after exploring the planet "Saturn"

On September 15, 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft announced a loss of contact with NASA at 11:55 GMT after a historic Saturn exploration mission.

Cassini entered the atmosphere of Saturn a minute before the communication cut at an altitude of about 1,915 kilometers above the cloud layer, at which altitude the atmospheric pressure is equal to 1 bar, this which is the pressure on the surface of the sea on the Earth.

The team took the latest images of the Saturn system, including the planet and its rings, as well as the satellites of Insadalus and Titan. The latest photos were taken on Thursday, September 14, 2017.

During the rush to the atmosphere, the Cassini spacecraft was traveling at a speed of about 113,000 kilometers per hour and the end of the probe was moving towards Saturn.

As Cassini approached Saturn's atmosphere, the propulsion and maneuvering engines briefly ignited to serve as resistance to thin gases and to preserve the transmitting antenna of the probe as far as possible in the atmosphere. the direction of the Earth to transmit the latter data. For about a minute, the impulses will not be able to do more to make sure that Cassini is balanced towards the ground and that the probe enters the chaotic phase.

When the transmitting antenna detached from the ground, the connection between Cassini and the Mission Control Center was interrupted. Cassini began to fall apart and in two minutes, each debris from Cassini ended completely in the Saturn meteor atmosphere.

Because of the distance between Earth, Saturn and, of course, a variable distance due to the rotation of the two planets around the sun, Cassini's last signal took 86 minutes to be detected on Earth, which means that Cassini is experiencing problems and is disconnected from him, but the signal of this event was not seen directly, but had to wait 86 minutes later, the signal was received by NASA's Deep Space Network in Canberra , in Australia.

This "last sign of farewell" was a "reverberation" that spread over our solar system for about an hour and a half after the final departure of Cassini.
This final signal contains important scientific data from Saturn, collected from eight of the 12 practical instruments on board Cassini, including magnetospheric and plasma instruments – a radio system, an infrared and ultraviolet spectrometer, which will be collected at the same time. final landing.
The Cassini spacecraft has spent 13 years in orbit around Saturn and its many moons, taking thousands of photos throughout this space mission.