Oddly Satisfying Video
Oddly Satisfying Video
hello everyone I'm gay a hill and welcome to NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory after two decades in space the Cassini spacecraft has reached the
end of its journey at Saturn earlier this morning the spacecraft made its
final approach to the giant planet and plunged into Saturn's upper atmosphere
ending this extraordinary mission but due to the time it takes for radio
signals to travel almost a billion miles between the ringed planet and Earth the
team won't have confirmation that the mission has ended until they see Cassini
signal drop away the Deep Space Network is monitoring Cassini signal as you can
see on this DSN now display it's being tracked by a 70 meter wide antenna
antenna 43 in Canberra Australia here's a live picture of the control room on
the other side of the world the DSN team in Australia is keeping a watchful eye
on Cassini's final transmission meanwhile it is 4 a.m. here in
California the Sun is not up yet and more than 1,500 Cassini scientists
engineers alumni friends and family have gathered for this moment the flight team
is in the Cassini mission control area others have gathered in von Karman
auditorium here at JPL and still more are at Caltech in Pasadena folks wanted
to be together to share this final moment this is a vigil but also a
celebration of a remarkable mission this is the last hour of the last chapter of
Cassini's grand finale
a lone Explorer
on a mission to reveal the grandeur of Saturn its rings and moons after 20
years in space NASA's Cassini spacecraft is running out of fuel and so to protect
moons of Saturn that could have conditions suitable for life the
spectacular end has been planned for this long-lived traveler from Earth
in 2004 following a seven-year journey through the solar system
Cassini arrived at Saturn the spacecraft carried a passenger the European Huygens
probe the first human-made object to land on a world in the distant outer
solar system for over a decade Cassini has shared the wonders of Saturn and its
family of icy moons taking us to astounding worlds where methane rivers
run to a methane see where Jets of ice and gas are blasting material into space
from a liquid water ocean that might Harbor the ingredients for life and
Saturn a giant world ruled by raging storms and delicate harmonies of gravity
now Cassini has with one last daring assignment
a Sini's grand finale is a brand new adventure as it repeatedly Braves this
unexplored region Cassini seeks new insights about the origins of the rains
and the nature of the planets interior closer to Saturn II than ever before
on the final orbit Cassini will plunge into Saturn fighting to keep its antenna
pointed at earth as a transmits its farewell
in the sky as of statin the journey ends
as Cassini becomes part of the planet
okay let's do the numbers the cassini numbers the mission has traveled nearly
five billion miles since lunch executed 2.5 million commands taken four hundred
and fifty three thousand plus images discovered six moons published nearly
four thousand science papers and it's not done Cassini is sending home data
right now right to the end let's take a look now and talk to Cassini program
manager Earl Mays about this after a lineup like that you have to be
impressed we're very proud of what we've been able to accomplish over the last 13
years of Saturn so a lot of people are asking then why must we end this mission
this way really we if you think about it a little bit you'll find out we don't
have it didn't have any choice Cassini must be disposed of properly at some
point there are international treaties that require that we can't just leave a
derelict spacecraft in orbit around a planet like Saturn which has prebiotic
moons so we've got to do something about it we could have sent Cassini away from
Saturn but Saturn was so compelling so exciting and the mission that we finally
came up with this so rich scientifically that we just couldn't we had to finish
up at Saturn not someplace else so the mission really started about
seven years ago we've been on this path to actually end up right where we are
right now in less than an hour so let's talk about what's about to happen and
kind of walk viewers through what to expect but let's start with Monday and
the kiss goodbye okay can you bring up that first graphic
let's see what we got here so this is the the last 22 orbits of Saturn and
every one of them is going between the Rings and Saturn absolutely unexplored
territory fantastic science every time and what's been also happening is that
that out of there further away is Titan and
every now and then Titan comes by and you're gonna see it come by for one last
final kiss goodbye that was it it was very quick you have to go Blake what
happened on Monday was that Titan came by and gave Cassini one last little
nudge took away a few tens of meters per second slowed us down just enough so
that our entry into Saturn in just a few minutes now is absolutely inevitable so
Cassini's fate is just sealed sealed absolutely done there was wasn't much we
could have done about it before because this thing had been so wired in but
after that tight and flyby there was absolutely nothing we can do so step us
through what has happened over this last week then getting ready for this moment
okay well because Cassini is still a science machine really most of what
we've been doing is still gathering more science and so if you look at this
graphic up here where you saw there's the Titan that kissed goodbye on
September 11th and then we turn right back around after flying by Titan
getting a lot of Titan dated we turned around played all that data back it's on
the monitors all of these some of our Jedi displays you can see those played
back all the data from Titan got good fuses the north of the lakes and the
clouds again turned Cassini turn back around again for its final set of
science observations and we actually did a little bit of science and a little bit
of just nostalgia we took a lot of pictures of them sell this our last
picture of Titan our last picture of the rings and planet and we will one took
one more look at the propellers and Peggy that little moon we discovered out
in the air ring so there's a little bit of science a
little bit of just kind of you know last new moment memento photos and those all
got played back beginning yesterday afternoon about 2:45 Cassini turn back
for final call to earth played all those data back there also available in our
real-time display about one o'clock this morning all that data was down on the
ground Cassini then rigged yourself up for if
we go back to that timeline just for a moment so September 15th 137 down there
that last plot we actually configured ourselves into a real time Saturn probe
everything that comes into the into the spacecraft goes right back out so
there's no delay or as little delay we could make so that we actually can
become an atmospheric sampling mission as we go into the planet and then of
course at 4:55 a.m. that's give or take there's a few seconds on that we'll be
entering into Saturn's atmosphere and let's advance to the next display this
is what's going to be happening within the last hour
that's exactly right we came in over the North Pole just a little bit east from
that perspective actually it looks West here but a little bit over the North
Pole just before 4 o'clock this morning we were 60 degrees north and as you can
see that descent is very rapid in 20 minutes from now or so we'll be at 50
degrees north then if 12 minutes later 40 and we'll be slowly not slowly we're
very rapidly increasing the 10 degree north latitude impact point is just
about where we're gonna finish up and it's going to happen about 5 of 5 this
morning local time and the last 90 seconds the last 90 seconds this is
really where it's all going to be happening Cassini's not going to even
really notice Saturn until the last 90 seconds because it's in freefall around
the gravitational body it's just it's doing its thing and playing everything
but between 70 and 60 seconds out from final impact it will start to notice the
atmosphere and you can see in this graphic the very tenuous atmosphere
started to experience now Cassini has been fighting the atmosphere before as a
matter of fact for the last 5 revs we've been doing that and it's done very well
but this time because we're going to go in so deep there's not a chance that it
can fight to hold on to the atmosphere that atmosphere where we've been
fighting it so far it's about the same density as the atmosphere that's an
International Space Station experiences here on earth very thin but we're going
very very fast and we have the animation from the video earlier ok painful to
watch well it's actually what you're watching this valiant spacecraft you can
see the thrusters coming out of acted back and as it starts to encounter the
atmosphere those are small thrusters ok they they just aren't built to fight the
kind of torques and by the way that's the antenna yeah chill trying to point
at the earth there's thrusters just aren't built to handle the kind of
javis rhetoric and Dragons it's going to concede he's going to experience but for
about a minute Cassini will hang on would be sampling the atmosphere will be
sitting the data back as quickly as we can and then finally of course it's
gonna lose the battle and well within the next minute we'll be completely and
totally vaporized becoming part of the planet it went to explore just as
planned as planned just exactly the way we've always had to do and so for it for
the team it is bittersweet I mean it is sad but there is tremendous energy here
there is I think we're excited because this is exactly the way we always
planned this it said that we're losing a you know incredible discovery machine
that's a loss but what was always in the plans and now it's working exactly the
way we set it out the images we've seen from the last few reps and that's
science we've had from this entire proximal orbit has just been phenomenal
so the real sense here is just alright we got it we have what a wonderful tour
thank you well thanks so much for joining us I'll let you back in the room
I know you want to be back with you alright thanks Earl
meanwhile DSN 43 in Australia is the antenna locked on Cassini signal and
let's check the update display the expected loss of signal is 455 a.m. and
that is about 41 minutes away from now
we've managed to inspire a younger generation of scientists and they will
continue after this is over and after the original investigators are gone to
to march on for their own challenges for future spacecraft exploration let's look
back to what inspired the mission and the day Cassini arrived at Saturn the
cassini-huygens mission was a joint effort of NASA the European Space Agency
and the Italian space agency it was conceived after the Voyager flybys of
Saturn and scientists all over the world insisted they had to go back
hello this is Arthur Clark joining you from what Oren Colombo Sri Lanka thanks
to the World Wide Web I've been following the purpose of the
Seany Huygens from the time it was launched
several years ago as you know I have more than a passing interest in Saturn
so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed with what Cassini discovers who knows
one day our survival on earth they depend on what we discover over there
okay we have burned complete here for the SLI or the insertion burn it for
Saturn's strong gravity pulling us in SOI burn attitude or pointing direction
and we'll hope to acquire a signal before that turn actually completes or
was a voice of Cassini propulsion engineer Todd barber Todd served as the
team's commentator and Todd is back today once again serving as our team
commentator in the same Mission Control Room for a much different event how does
it feel taught to be here I gave well it's great to be back it's kind of cruel
to age thirteen years in two seconds and have to watch that but what a
demonstration of the longevity of this mission as you and I sat there in 2004
we never dreamt we'd be here in 2017 still talking about Cassini and
collecting science data so I'm just thrilled to be here even even having
aged some years since ass alive Oh Todd very quickly we're a couple of minutes
behind here explain to us why the team has gathered here even though you told
me that the spacecraft met its fate probably about 3:30 about 3:30 Pacific
time out at Saturn but yet the team is waiting here now and holding vigil why
is that well it's that pesky Albert Einstein in his speed of light speed
limit 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometers per second so Saturn
is about an hour and 23 minutes away from us right now one-way light time I'm
a big sports nut I tape a lot of games and DVR em and and the game is still
exciting if you don't know the result you haven't seen it and no one's seen
the cassini last bits of science come back from Saturn yet it's just about to
cross the orbit of Jupiter there's our graphic so
and of course Jupiter's a little different position so any denizens of
the solar system at Jupiter or Mars they'll know Cassini's faith and last
bit of data before we will on earth so we're holding vigil here we also have
this display kind of like a gauges in your car this is the speed notice it's
63,000 miles per hour and climbing as we descend into Saturn's gravity well and
on the right side is the distance from the cloud tops and that's just shrinking
it's gonna head down over the next 37 minutes until we reach those cloud tops
and say goodbye to our beautiful spacecraft down at Saturn and Todd help
us understand how the team will be monitoring this yes we've got a few ways
there's a display from well here's our radio signal so this is the carrier
frequency and what I like to point out here the peak in the middle this is like
the loudness or the signal strength and at the cassini frequency that it's
talking we have two displays by the way X band and s band those are just two
different radio frequencies so if you think in your car radio of tuning to
different frequencies that's like moving along the x-axis there are the
horizontal axis and we're getting a nice big strong booming signal from Cassini
on both those axes but as we come into the atmosphere and turn away from Earth
our thrusters can't keep up anymore with the torques those will flatline and
that's when we say goodbye to Cassini however the key is to keep the data
coming down to earth and get those precious last few bits of science data
from Saturn our first sniff of the upper Saturn atmosphere and boy we're excited
for that well thanks Todd we will check back with you later
and one of the signals Todd showed you is part of a computer visualization tool
we call eyes on the solar system this JPL computer simulation software is
based on real data from missions and it's something you can download onto
your own computer and use to follow along this morning just go to eyes
nasa.gov download the app and click on Cassini Store here are two family photos
we'd like to share the top one was taken on June 21st 2017 it's the Cassini team
and alumni and they filled the staircase on the mall here most of them are
engineers on the bottom photo was and this one was just taken just a few days
ago it's the science team and they were at Caltech the team includes scientists
from all over the world over the years thousands of people have worked on this
mission in fact there are so many members of the Cassini family we
couldn't fit all of them here at JPL it's why there's a big crowd at Beckman
auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena and that is where Cassini science team
member Morgan Cable is right now Morgan what is it like out there
hi Gaye well here at Cal Tech the you can hear behind me right this is a
historic moment and I think the mood reflects that but it's also like a
family reunion so we're here with our other fellow Cassini family members
we're seeing people we haven't seen in a long time for some cases and it's just
been wonderful to share these memories to revel in the excitement this is a
celebration of an amazing mission and an incredible legacy Morgan you're one of
the scientists you're one of the scientists out there I mean for you
you're probably being very reflective what was one of the highlights for you
of this mission for me personally the discoveries at Enceladus have really
revolutionized our view of where we might find life or at least the
conditions suitable for life in not only our solar system but the universe we've
learned now that there are places where liquid water and the other ingredients
for life as we know it to exist chemistry and energy exist in places
like Enceladus and that's thanks to the Cassini mission which flew through the
plume of Enceladus multiple times this means that life may not only exist
in the habitable zone around other stars but now we can start to look for places
like Enceladus or Europa elsewhere in the universe and extend our search to
try to find that amazing discovery of life somewhere else all right well we
will be checking back with you Morgan later on the show thanks for that report
it is about 23 minutes past the hour you're watching live coverage marking
the final moments of Cassini on NASA TV the Deep Space Network is awaiting the
loss of signal from the spacecraft from DSN antenna 43 in Australia and let's go
to Cassini's final our display at this point the spacecraft has sent us data
from about the 50 degree north latitude mark and loss of signal should be coming
about about 32 minutes from now
you
beautiful images from Cassini the cassini-huygens mission made so many
historic discoveries think about it the Huygens probe sent back details of an
alien world on Titan a world that appears to be very similar to earth it
found jet spraying water ice and organics from the South Pole of
Enceladus revealing an interior ocean where there could be life over and over
again the mission revealed scientific wonders about Saturn its rings and moons
and it hasn't stopped at least not yet with me now is Cassini project scientist
Linda spoker this mission was determined to send down science right down to the
very that's right gay till the very last second so Earl told us just a little
while ago that over night the spacecraft sent back the last picture show it's
been called can you describe what those are okay well let's go to the very first
image image a as part of the last picture show the first thing we did is
we made a color mosaic and these are just a couple of pictures from that
mosaic we'll stitch those together and have a beautiful image of Saturn plus
the Rings for the last time we go to image a see that's a movie of Enceladus
actually setting behind the limb of Saturn and explain to me how the team
decided to come up with this imagery in this selection well there's a lot of
science in these images so we wanted to do science oh there's
Enceladus setting behind the limit of Saturn so we're saying goodbye to
Enceladus and taking a last look at that particular world and so we wanted to
sort of do a survey look at each of these key targets collect picture
postcards for our Cassini scrapbook so these would be the last pictures that
we'll put in our scrapbook if we look at image D that's a true color image of
Titan and you can see the lakes up in the North image F shows this in false
color there's a UV filter as part of image F and the lakes really pop out and
you can also see that bluish haze at the edge of Titan you know Titan has this
thick nitrogen Atmos we also took some pictures of the rings'
gang if we go to image G we're looking for propellers in this particular image
and you can just see a hint of it above that dart gap if we go to image H that's
a blow-up and see that little two arm propeller it's that little bright
feature just above the dark gap there's a collection of ring particles that are
large enough they're trying to open their own gap and they create what looks
like an airplane propeller and they have fun names names of aviators if we go to
image I as part of the sequence we're looking at the tiny moon daftness that's
the Keeler gap you can see those crinkly edges along the gap that's created by
deafness awake as it goes through that system and you can see the beautiful
density ways the interaction between the Rings and the satellites also as those
bright features in our last look at the propellers and finally image J this is
an image looking at Saturn in a place where a Cassini will be entering so one
of our last views our very last pictures of Saturn and you can think of Cassini
as basically running a marathon for 13 years we've been running a marathon of
scientific discovery and were on the last lap and so we're here today to
cheer s Cassini finishes that race now many many of these images and what the
spacecraft will be doing right now all of this is unknown territory the
spacecraft has never been here before that's right we're flying into Saturn
more deeply than we've ever flown before we have 8 of our scientific instruments
on the key instrument is the ion neutral mass spectrometer basically coming in
we've oriented the instrument to sample the atmosphere of Saturn which it's
doing right now deeper and deeper until in the very final second as Cassini
fights to hold attitude it'll send back those last very valuable packets of data
and who knows how many PhD theses might be in just those final seconds
of data right yep we will have scientists and students poring over this
data for decades to come right right and looking at the hydrogen to helium ratio
to help us understand how Saturn formed how Saturn is evolving and who knows
what else we'll see as we go into the atmosphere
what great science means that you know still ahead
all right well Linda thanks for joining us yes glad to be here you're watching
live coverage of Cassini's final hour from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL
is a NASA Center in LA cañada Flintridge and Pasadena California and
managed by the California Institute of Technology let's check out our display
we are now about just a little under 26 minutes from the end of mission
well the Cassini team considers itself a family a team that works together and
plays together and here is one example the Cassini virtual singers they have a
knack for putting a Cassini spin on just about any show to me and I saw Todd
barber in that group Todd it is a very close-knit group and a
multi-generational group I mean some people have spent their entire careers
on this mission and others are just starting their careers on Cassini Todd
barber is standing by with one of the younger members of the team guidance and
control engineer Joni stupic who started her career with Cassini right yes that's
right and I've been on since before launch but it's so wonderful to have
young engineers join the project welcome Joni and Joni is an attitude control
engineer on the project and can you explain what that means to our viewers
sure absolutely so I and my team are in charge of the orientation of the
spacecraft so we point all of the cameras and the antennae that's great
and you have a particularly important role this evening right or this morning
I guess I should say absolutely so as Earl and Linda both alluded to we want
to get every last possible second of information which means our antenna
needs to be pointed towards Earth for as long as we possibly can as we enter into
the atmosphere so I'm just gonna start trying to tug us away so we want to hold
the antenna studies we possibly can for that whole time and how do you do that
we have little engines or thrusters that we use to hold us study wonderful so
that's and basically we will lose the battle of Saturn's atmosphere we will
and if we go to the graph up here we see the thrusters firing as we try and hold
that antenna for as long as we can and that will last for only about a minute
and so the trusters are finally overwhelmed and we can no longer point
me and wow that's amazing but those precious seconds of
science data are are worth every presser pulse we put on that every every second
yeah we're learning all about Saturn's atmosphere with all the instruments we
can as we go in sounds good yeah we want a point as long as we can so you started
your career on this mission how are you feeling tonight knowing it's we have to
say goodbye to our beautiful spacecraft is definitely better suite yeah I
started my career I was in high school when Cassini arrived at Saturn so it's
you know it's really exciting and I'm really proud to have worked on such you
know incredible mission and be part of such a wonderful family but it's gonna
be sad you know I'm used to checking how the spacecraft is feeling every morning
and things like that so it'll be a little sad to not have that anymore I
definitely agree there and and we're so grateful for your contributions and all
the young engineers on the project as well as the veterans that have been
around since launch thank you Joe we got a few tricks up our sleeve so if we can
head back to the radio science display and check and see still looking good so
we have a strong X and s band signal so our as Earl man or fate is sealed we
we've met our planetary protection requirement we know we're gonna impact
Saturn and take care of that the next thing that's important is to hold that
signal as long as possible and get every last precious bit of science data so so
far so good Gaye back to you thanks Joanie it is about 33 minutes past the
hour and the estimated time of loss of signal is 455 a.m. Pacific
you
you
the cassini-huygens mission has been an epic adventure around the Saturn system
it has sent home mountains of science data stunning images the spacecraft
performed beautifully the mission fulfilled its goals and vensim members
say they couldn't have asked for anything more
this is five mana control systems are go I've worked on the
Cassini project for almost 30 years and that's an entire Saturn orbit the beauty
of Cassini is the design it's the largest outer planetary
spacecraft ever built 12 different instruments the Huygens probe built by
the European Space Agency it's just a monumental machine
you
the Huygens probe has dropped onto Titan these are images from billion miles away
on the surface of Titan their boulders their pebbles we're in a dry lakebed and
I still get your scopes this talking about
looking back at what we were planning to do in those first four years we've gone
so far beyond that we remapped our investigations to concentrate on the
questions the cassini raised two of our instruments actually sampled the plume
of Enceladus as we flew through tasting the gas measuring the particles in a way
that we hadn't planned Cassini has changed the paradigm of where we might
look for life that will be one of her legacies 13 years of exploring Saturn it
really is just an awesome mission
all right well joining me now is NASA director of planetary science Jim green
some of Cassini's greatest accomplishments came as big surprises
didn't it they did absolutely you know one of the ones that's pretty
spectacular obviously is Enceladus now you may not really understand the
importance of having a spacecraft with all kinds of instruments including
magnetometers and plasma wave instruments but it was really discovered
the plumes by a magnetometer and so as the spacecraft was doing a flyby what
was happening is the plumes were being blasted out of the tiger stripes they
were being ionized and they're loading down the field dragging it by and so the
magnetometer saw the wave of the field in a place that they hadn't expected and
that gave a hint that something was going on and it needed to be looked at
and so then the next pass they came up with the idea well let's look at it in
backlight and wow there were the plumes and that started then a series of new
orbits and new trajectories to try to go through and taste the plumes and get
even more details about what's happening at Enceladus and how does this discovery
sort of change the way we look for life in the solar system well this is really
a calling if you will of hey you're gonna have to come back because there's
several things we know about life one it metabolizes that means it takes in a
liquid it then uses that to extract energy and then the liquid is used to
extract the waste but then it evolves and then it also reproduces well I can't
measure any of those from our spacecraft other than going after the water so once
we see an area that has water then we know that is a possibility of being a
habitable environment and transitioning the other big story also from Cassini is
another moon Titan oh yeah tight what a beautiful moon this is you know it's
bigger than the planet Mercury its atmosphere is actually a significant one
it's twice the pressure that we have here on earth
it's similar in the sense that it has a lot of nitrogen effect it's dominated by
nitrogen but it also has liquid on its surface which we know now is methane and
there's a hydrological cycle of evaporation transport rain and then new
Lakes are forming in other locations on the moon and that's an incredible
science legacy but Titan also helped us with an engineering legacy as well oh
absolutely the concept of using Titan to do lunar or to do a gravity assist swing
buys that then enable those spacecraft to get into dipper different orbits is a
fabulous concept because while we're doing that and here's the Koosh ball as
we say all these spectacular flybys allow us to look at Titan in detail so
from multiple flybys we can get a global view of that moon and we're using that
same concept at Jupiter with another moon called Europa I wanted to bring up
the e-book because one of the most fantastic things about this mission has
been the imagery could you tell us a little bit about that well you know we
really needed to make sure that we had wonderfully described and and and
beautifully set images that were accessible to everyone and after you
know four hundred and fifty thousand plus images it's so hard to pick but you
know we were able to go back in get a hundred beautiful images or more and
videos and all kinds of yeah where if you want to get it you can down look it
off the internet nasa.gov slice ebooks all right well Jim thanks for joining us
thanks for taking time for us and I know you want to get back into that
thank you thank you
well we are a little over 10 minutes away from the loss of signal so we will
be focusing our attention to the control room very soon now but before we do
let's take a moment to chat with JPL director Mike Watkins so Mike how are
you feeling well first good morning boys tend to do these events somehow at 3:00
in the morning or 5:00 in the wine but you know it's it's kind of a bittersweet
event for all of us I think for me personally it's more sweet than bitter
because the Cassini's been such a fantastic mission but I think you know
one of the important things about these events is to celebrate the incredible
hard work the decades of hard work of the team that designed built and
operated Cassini and that's really at the heart of the spacecraft is really
the people that worked on it and the people that have been operating it and
this is a great time to celebrate those those that a level of dedication that
devotion you know to work on something for 10 20 30 years that that's that's
sort of unparalleled in in human history so how do you think Cassini will be
remembered in the science books well I'd say most of the science books most of
most what we have in science books about Saturn come from Cassini right so we
will be long remembered I mean you look at almost everything we know came from
Cassini about Saturn but you know I think one of the greatest legacies of a
mission is is not just the scientific discoveries it makes and what you'll
learn about but the fact that you you make discoveries that are so compelling
that you have to go back and that's really the part of what makes the end of
Cassini sweet is that it's the discoveries are so compelling that we
have to go back we will go back and fly through the geysers of Enceladus and
we'll go back and look at Titan because it's just the Cassini findings are just
they're just groundbreaking but the way missions are one missions sort of sets
the foot steps for the next mission so what's coming up next after Cassini so
one of the things we've learned about the outer solar system is how much water
is there so we used to think that most of the water was here in the inner solar
system here on earth for example the habitable zone Goldilocks zone between
Martin between Venus and Mars where we are we now realize that there's a lot of
water in the outer sole system so europa for example the moon of
Jupiter Enceladus and I think what you see compelling about the outer planets
is to go back and look at those ocean worlds in great detail fly through the
geysers try to get drilled down through the ice take a look at the composition
of the ice and as Jim Green noted you know are these habitable places or these
places where there could be life and so we here at JPL and and NASA we have
plans to go back to many of these ocean worlds as many as we can the next one up
is a flyby of multiple flybys of Europa we call Europa clipper where I'll be in
orbit around Jupiter and fly by Europa forty or fifty times
and taking a very close look at at that ocean and from above the ice of course
and the composition of the ice and then later we'll we'll make our way to the
other ocean world's oceans are the things to look at right now it's
absolutely you know the search for life is one of the is one of the compelling
threads for for a NASA for the science Mission Directorate and for JPL we're
looking for for life in our solar system and of course we're looking for life
outside the solar system we're looking for exoplanets and other Earth's
but the ocean worlds look like an incredibly compelling target well thank
you so much Mike for coming by and joining us I know all the guys want to
get back in there in the pool room and be there for the militia that's all
right thanks thank you so much you're watching live coverage of Cassini's
final hour from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL is located in LA cañada
Flintridge and Pasadena and managed by the California Institute of Technology
let's take a look at our last our display or display shows that we are
just over seven minutes away from the end of mission and it's now traveling
about seventy five thousand miles per hour so Cassini is traveling rapidly
towards this end of mission
for all the beauty and the exotic features that we found those are places
that startled and amazed but not a place where you can live and I think it gives
you a perspective on the earth and what a wonderful place it is and more impetus
to perhaps take care of it
we are getting close to time and at the time where we should lose that signal
folks are watching the radio science the display right now so let's go to Todd
and Joanie and Mission Control hi gay well six minutes to go till we're six
feet under so it's it's gonna be hard to say goodbye here radio display still
looks great as we just saw on screen Mission Control we're I hear a lot of
buzz in the room about the thruster cycles because the thrusters are firing
we're still outside the atmosphere and they're just keeping dead bats keeping
that pointing on earth as long as possible so things aren't too crazy yet
but once we hit that atmosphere things happen super fast so let's look around
the room we have two frames thank you telecom systems Telecom is nominal good
SMT thank you
frequency's time to increase copy thank you
propulsion systems li pressures and temperatures are a nominal propulsion is
nominal I'd be thank you missions lighting
systems Lee mission planning is nominal happy thank you flight director systems
lady everything is normal copy thank you so what we just heard was
the room going around and checking all of the the subsystem so so far all of
the sub systems are nominal about four minutes three and a half to four minutes
away from the end we went for a blow rate to high rate control can you
comment on that sure so we have our computer that's
controlling our pointing has different modes and it's smart enough to know when
we start having to fight a little harder so we heard that the computer
acknowledged that we start having to fight a little bit okay thanks we were
marking earlier it's incredible this entire spacecraft runs on six hundred
watts of power how much power is that yeah about half half a hairdryer it's
all we got right now I wouldn't talk about how little fuel we have left it's
about 1% plus or minus 2% that's one reason we're heading into Saturn's
atmosphere tonight under three minutes now
we should definitely emphasize we don't know exactly when we'll lose signal it
depends on the Saturn atmosphere and how well the thrusters fight so stay tuned
radio signal looks wonderful X band an S fan two different radio bands still
getting the signal from Cassini we're approaching about 10 degrees north
latitude
3,000 miles from the from the cloud top I remember seeing we were gonna hit the
atmosphere about 77,000 miles an hour I see we're close
so 2 minutes and Counting
we're starting to this is a cs1 yes we're still waiting for transition to
high rate mode but it looks like we're gonna start accumulating thruster on
time at a higher rate now and our attitude control error is starting to to
be more active nothing yeah things were just starting to sense the atmosphere
right yeah we can start seeing the space we're starting to lose the battle with
the atmosphere this is ps1 we just had the transition to high rate mode and
with this we're going to start seeing the rust around time accumulating very
quickly and the dead band is going to clamp down to 0.5 0.5 to Miller ad and
we are in the atmosphere we can confirm what ACS have told you copy thank you I
was just starting to see the thrusters fire more and more
yeah
radio signals still holding 30 seconds
systems leave mission planning your admission flooding
spacecraft has just crossed 10 degrees north latitude altitude 1,000 miles copy
thank you
systems ACS one with the additional Chris John time
we're going to also see the dead Dan to start writing
across there zero time
go ahead price lecture
project manager flight director go ahead okay we call loss of signal loss of next
and
colossal signal at 1 1 5 5 4 6 4 the SPN so that would be the end of the
spacecraft at Project Manager on FSO Court maybe a trickle of telemetry left
but just heard the signal from the spacecraft just go on and within the
next 45 seconds so will be the spacecraft I hope you're all as deeply
proud of this amazing accomplishment congratulations to you all
this has been an incredible mission an incredible spacecraft and you're all an
incredible team I'm going to call this the end of mission project manager off
the net
you
so just a short time ago Julie Webster the space operations team
manager and program manager Earl Mays called it the end of mission for Cassini
it came at about 455 as predicted let's go now to Beckman auditorium and check
in with Morgan Cable she is with Cassini interdisciplinary scientist Jonathan
luening to find out how the scientists are doing and the team is doing down
there the mission is certainly not over for
them because now there will be tons of data for them to be poring over Morgan
that's a very good point gain there's gonna be lots of data to analyze for
years to come Jonathan how are you feeling right now
I'm actually breathing again and I feel sad but we felt sad the whole week we
knew this was going to happen and Cassini performed exactly as she was
supposed to and I'll bet there's some terrific data on the ground now about
Saturn's atmosphere I'll bet you're right what was your favorite memory of
Cassini well sure a story just anything that comes to mind
my two favorite moments were both having to do with Titan one was seeing the Seas
of Titan for the first time from the radar on Cassini and the other was
seeing the surface of Titan from the Huygens probe sitting with 30 other
people and a trailer in the middle of Germany in the middle of winter it was
cold and dark and there were the first pictures of gullies on the surface of an
alien world that had to just blow your minds it did I was screaming so was
everyone else well I think the moods been a little bit more somber now but
there was applause right near the end I think this is this is a celebration of
Cassini's life and Cassini's legacy and we should talk a little bit about the
future what do you see next for the Saturn system well what I would like to
see next for the Saturn system is that we go back there and there's so many
things that Cassini has given us in terms of a legacy to explore Enceladus
and the possibility of life Titan in it's amazing atmosphere in lakes and
seas and hydrologic cycle Saturn and the Rings and the mysteries of what lies
beneath the clouds there's an awful lot that Cassini has said to us
we must go back and explore yeah there's a lot left to do in the Saturn system
and and elsewhere in the solar system as well well this has been a an
international mission and an intergenerational mission right it's
been such a joy for someone like me to be able to be mentored by veterans like
you in terms of following on Cassini's legacy and and mentoring the next
generation what do you see in terms of next missions coming up being able to
bring in the next generation of scientists and engineers first of all
I'm very very confident and optimistic about the next generation because I can
see that the experts are here already so we will be well served in the future and
of course NASA is going back to Europa with the Europa clipper which is very
exciting and the Europeans are doing juice to the other Galilean moons and
there are a number of concepts out there for going back to Enceladus and Titan
and to Saturn we don't know if any of those are going to happen in the next
few years but we'll see there are lots of ideas the important point is that
Cassini has got to be a jumping-off point to
even more exciting exploratory missions we can't let it stop at this point we
have to keep going on we will in the Jupiter system we need to go back to
Saturn we need to go to Uranus and Neptune we need to do the whole outer
solar system we need to the outer planets I think one of the amazing
things that Cassini has shown us is that it's not a boring cold place it's
dynamic its so incredibly varied just the
differences in the moons of Saturn alone it inspires us to want to go back and to
learn more yeah you know 40 40 years ago Voyager 1 was launched and it was FOIA
jour 1 & 2 that broke open the outer solar system for us told us that this
was not a cold dead gray place and then Galileo and Cassini followed on and
showed us what really amazing things are going on in those systems and that there
might in fact be places for life to exist in Europa and Enceladus and Titan
and I have a poem I want to read to you as well at some point it's just a good
time I think it's a great time okay you know a lot has been said about Cassini
already and the end of the mission but I think that the best I can do to to leave
for me leave the celebration of Cassini's and is to read a bit of a poem
by Swinburne on the verge which was a nautical poem about death and dying
death sailing on the sea as a metaphor for death and so I'm gonna read the last
few lines of it and I've changed one of the words it'll be obvious ah but here
Cassini's heart leaps yearning toward the gloom with venturous glee though her
pilot I behold nor BAE nor harbour rock nor Sheol from the shore that hath no
Shore beyond it said in all the sea that's beautiful you had to do that
didn't you Thank You Jonathan for everything
well Morgan the future is in your hands and the hands of your generation and
this was a moment of transition it was not the end and so let's go forth and
explore the solar system together alright that's a beautiful sentiment
well with me now is NASA associate administrator for science Thomas sir
Lucan doctors are broken what was your reaction being in that control room I
was just overwhelmed with just that understanding how professional this team
is you know like during the entire time theirs was clearly emotional for
everybody the lucky peanuts were there but there are a lot of Kleenex and
there's a lot of you of Kleenex but everybody was so
professional to the very end and I just saw it happening you know it went so
fast you know somebody was shouting out wow we're struggling with c-axis and oh
it's gone and I just saw that team holding together till the very end just
really it's all about teamwork with this mission and it showed in the last
seconds it truly did and your feelings about this what sort of legacy do you
think this mission leaves you know I really do think that rewrote not only
what we know without the other sources but how we think as humans about
ourselves you know these worlds that it found we never knew were there are
changing how we think about life itself and so for me that's why it's truly a
civilization scale mission one that will stand out among other missions anywhere
and how will it impact future ideas and future missions as we plan new things
you know some of the hardest questions to answer our questions like is there
life out there and this mission really has redefined that it will affect how we
think about that questions of course we're tackling that at NASA with a
multitude of missions looking at Mars trying to bring samples back but also
looking at Europa looking at these outer ocean worlds and finding these worlds
all over the universe our lower our galaxy every you know there's thousands
of these exoplanets and you know Saturn like Jupiter like and of exoplanets that
we're discovering and we're thinking about that in a totally new way and so
the thought is people are clamoring to go back will that be difficult to do to
be able to envision another mission to these places soon it's almost very
difficult right to do this because these machines are so hard don't mind we to go
back and for example take the next step on Enceladus we want to really think
what that will take now there's great ideas already out there and perhaps some
of these ideas will come to fresh and relatively early I don't know but but
you know and we'll really start thinking about this and and start talking about
it and the science community oh we're all going for courage them to
to really start you know making plans so we can create a consensus as to what
direction we want to go and yes we want to really go back this is such a
wonderful system we don't want to leave it alone it's such a beautiful one and
it's affected so many people dr. su Bookman thank you so much for sharing
this moment with us a very special thanks to the team
well the cassini-huygens team was a multi international team and you know
just a few moments from now we will be speaking to members of ISA and Ozzy
about their feelings about this mission
you
as we told you earlier Cocina Huygens was a multinational endeavor from the
very very start a partnership between NASA the European Space Agency and the
Italian space agency this is an equally proud moment for ISA and aussi and the
ISA director of science Alvaro Jimenez joins us and the president of Asti
Roberto Pakistan are here to share this historic moment thank you so much for
coming was this something that you decided you wouldn't miss it for the
world of course we couldn't miss it because we knew this moment was gonna
come it's a little bit sad because we wanted to delay it as much as possible
and get as much science as possible but we knew it was coming and that sense is
sad but is also very nice to see that we have opened the possibility for the
future science also and for the scientists to work in on the data that
Cassini has collected but also as an example and I think we have to build on
this cooperation between the US and Europe in ambitious missions like this
we are very proud of having work together and we have to make sure that
we continue this way because together we can do much better than Sadler and
Roberto your feelings I mean to be a part of
this I was not there 20 years ago and I start at the but I know the story of all
my friends and colleagues and Cassini demonstrated we can do that we can
create a condition for the international collaboration emission which can operate
with 20 years which can learn in tremenda mount of things for the future
is one step a gigantic step toward the future in the radiation hope this is not
the last one but is only the first one with series were you surprised at how
long this mission has lasted and the the amount of information and science that
it has brought back not not so much about the length I think
we all dreamt about it but their discoveries and what we have found in
the Saturn system are simply amazing we were surprised by that and ESA's roll
with Huygens and and working on Titan I mean what was the high points for you
well for me Huygens was getting to Titan we landed
there in 2005 but the whole purpose was to understand the atmosphere of Titan to
analyze the atmosphere which is a pro biotic atmosphere full of nitrogen and
methane and this kind of elements which is what we thought this body is outside
in the outer part of the solar system where be full life could appear and and
we want to analyze that but then we found that we could even land we when
the mission was design it we thought we didn't know how the surface was we
didn't know if it was going to sink it was alive for some time and and that was
amazing because also we could see first this was the farthest away landing ever
of a human-made probe but also we found a landscape
totally unexpected of Titan something similar to earth actually with lakes and
rivers and mountains and very but with a totally different chemical composition a
totally different world and with the cycles of methane rather than water but
it is so interesting is so very very familiar and Roberto let's talk about
Ozzy's role and the high-gain antenna so often the project relied on the
high-gain antenna as protection for the rest of the spacecraft was that
something that was planned and you thought this is a way to use the antenna
amazing the most sophisticated antenna ever built for a space mission receiving
and transmitting of four different bands at the same time operated for twenty
years almost continuously so that was the core of it but indeed you are right
it was designed to be as a passive thermal protection system going to
Venice this was shielding the satellite from the intense solar radiation and
getting into certain environment it was shooting again the micrometer it
basically measuring by the vibration on the antenna itself the amount of
micrometer it which was hitting and to use that as a protection when entering
in certain location like the space in between the annulus and the Saturn
planet which was unknown totally unknown and I think this is amazing such a
sophisticated instrument to be used as a thermal shield or as a micro metallic
shield indeed Cassini was such a well made machine and served so well I think
in its entire flight it was it had only saved I think three times and and that
was all but could not have done it without both Ossie and ISA and we are so
pleased that you are here and joining us the kind of stories about space missions
that we should be told because the fact that was smooth and perfectly designed
without trouble is a tremendous giant bones and should be known right well
thank you again for coming out and being with us on this very very special day
all right
you
and that video you just saw was called Cassini inspires it was made up of
images that the public you sent in using some of Cassini's raw images as well as
your own artwork thank you so much well that wraps it up from here a bittersweet
day for the Cassini team but we can't help but feel proud of the fantastic
people that made these accomplishments possible these last 20 years and about
an hour from now at 6:30 a.m. Pacific 9:30 a.m. Eastern there will be a news
briefing on Cassini's grand finale it will be live on NASA TV and also
streamed and for more information about the mission you can check out the URLs
you see on the screen and a little bit earlier Jim Green told you about the
e-book some of the most memorable gifts from Cassini are those spectacular
images an e-book of these stunning images has been made and you can find it
by going to that link you see on the screen well finally before we go a
parting look at the DSN now image the display you see there a 10 antenna 43
that's the one in Australia is now dark communication with a spacecraft is now
silent Cassini is no more but what a legacy it leaves behind thanks for
joining us
you
you
you
you
you
you
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