[X] My Assistant

[Rakhir]

Death of a Spacecraft: The Unknown Fate of Cassini
http://space.com/businesstechnology/061108_cassini_fate.html

I like the Cassini Mercury crash option, even if unlikely.

Rakhir

[ugordan]

Yikes Rakhir, you should choose topic titles more carefully, this gave me the creeps!

About the article... Sheesh, Cassini's only halfway through the primary mission and people are already thinking of how to dispose of it. Seems a bit morbid. Smashing it into Jupiter? Mercury? Seriously?
I fail to see the need of impacting Jupiter if you exit the Saturnian system. Once you do that, it'll likely be decades before you even get a chance to get close to Saturn again. I'd rather do another close flyby of Jupiter to do some useful science. Not that it's very likely to happen, though.
How plausible would it be for Titan to be able to launch Cassini on a Hohmann transfer to Jupiter anyway? Seems like a waste of Titan flybys for sub-optimal flyby trajectories just to eject Cassini out of the Saturnian system. If you're gonna eject it anyway, the Mercury impact seems like a much better idea, given the enormous mass of Cassini (some 2 tons dry weight) plus a very substantial impact speed a trajectory coming in from beyond Jupiter would be. That would excavate one heck of a crater. Plus you get to to some Jupiter science beforehand. Here's hoping that by that time (say late next decade) we'll have something in Jovian orbit again and Cassini could wave goodbye, just like it did to Galileo.

[Rakhir]

Yikes Rakhir, you should choose topic titles more carefully, this gave me the creeps!

Indeed, Ugordan, my heart missed a beat when I read the title of this article.

In addition of the Jupiter fly-by, maybe other fly-bys of inner planets or asteroids would be possible during the trip .
Avoiding of course the Earth because of RTGs.

[jsheff]

Indeed, Ugordan, my heart missed a beat when I read the title of this article.

In addition of the Jupiter fly-by, maybe other fly-bys of inner planets or asteroids would be possible during the trip .
Avoiding of course the Earth because of RTGs.

Actually, Rakhir, you had the story right - just the wrong spacecraft:


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1226



- John Sheff
Cambridge, MA