The Grand Finale, Proximal orbits Options

[jasedm]

Interior to Dione's orbital distance now.

[belleraphon1]

Born in 1953. A time when public could still wonder about lichens on Mars and swamps or oceans on Venus. I became aware with Mariner 4 at Mars in 1965.
What a journey through a wonderland of worlds have we seen in the 50 some years since. VOYAGER gave us the introduction. CASSINI sealed the wonder at Saturn.
I will never forget the moments of discovery throughout the Saturn system, from methane storms at Titan's south pole seen in 2004, to the weird walnut shape of Iapetus on new years eve 2005.
Geysers on Enceladus, red streaks on icy moons.... mysteries to be further explored in the future. And through it all this forum UMSF. Thank you to the CASSINI team. Thank you to
UMSF for a ride with folks who love what I love.

[MahFL]

Hi all. Watching here. My name is on Cassini . My night shift finishes at 6 am so I'll stop up and watch the end. ( I work from home ).

PS I had a cloud free view of the Total Solar Eclipse, was awesome.

[elakdawalla]

Images for the final wide angle mosaic are coming down now. I hope there are some folks here who'll work on assembling it. Looks like they shot 3 different versions, one each exposed for Saturn and the rings (RGB) and one (clear filter only) for the G ring, for a real HDR mosaic.

[Astroboy]

I'm not crying, you're crying!

[Explorer1]

And with that, I realize that tomorrow morning will be tougher than I thought... this mission has been there for basically half my life. Many of you others grew up with the Voyagers, Vikings, Galileo, and others, and I will have future missions to see, perhaps back to Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, but Cassini truly bridged the generations (in so many ways!)

[tedstryk]

I became old enough to kind of understand at the very end of the old era (1989, Voyager's last encounter and the Soviet planetary program's last gasp with Phobos-2), and Cassini and CRAF (it's twin, which NASA pulled out of and evolved into Rosetta) were at the time, along with a Pluto mission, the distant dreams on the horizon. Rosetta has ended, New Horizons, which I've had the privilege to be a part of, has been by Pluto, and tomorrow Cassini ends. Honestly, I feel strangely displaced.

[wildespace]

The final mosaic of Saturn is being downlinked. Here's a little part of it:


NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Maksim Kakitsev

Gonna be another stunning backlit view of Saturn!

[JRehling]

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

-Paul Simon

[climber]

Don't know why, but I wake up this morning with a song already in my head that goes like this:

This is the end,
Hold your breath and count to ten,
..........
Let the sky fall....
-Adele

[jch]

And how can a probe die better than facing alien worlds,
for the knowledge of its creators, and the future of next probes?

I would like to say "Thank you!" to everyone involved in this mission. Thank you - for what you did for me in last so many years.

[nprev]

To die like a meteor in a blaze of glory, gracing an alien sky after a long life of discovery and wonder, is somehow fitting, even poetic.

Thank you.

[Explorer1]

Looks like the final raws are down, showing the final target....
(and a final Captain's Log from Carolyn Porco: http://ciclops.org/)

[ugordan]

Thank you and farewell, Cassini.

You will be missed.

[paxdan]

Thank you to the Team who built and flew the craft, and thank you to Cassini for showing us the wonders of the solar system.