R. I. P., Cassini
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2017 5:57 pmThat Cassini, not that Cassini.
It was a pleasure knowing you, your voyages and the things you accomplished. I was jittery in front of the livestream when you achieved SOI with a 96 min burn on a trajectory that led you through the (of course) Cassini division; when you delivered Huygens to Titan, and when Huygens broadcast to you until you were under its horizon; when you took one of the most astounding portraits of Saturn and the Earth, when you flew through the plumes of Enceladus, and when you caught the Sun glinting off Titan's ice-cold, but strangely fluid Northern lakes.
You will be greatly missed, but you went out in style, bravely firing the last of your fuel in order to keep the antenna pointed at Earth, when you sampled and tasted the elusive upper atmosphere of the giant you circled for thirteen years.
As an afterthought, your plutonim oxide pellets were covered in metallic iridium in order to keep the PuO2 from dispersing into the atmosphere on entry (in case of an engine failure at liftoff). Iridium is highly heat resistant. If droplets of it survive intact, they will sink right into the nucleus of Saturn, as there is probably no place there denser than Iridium. So, while there is no more Cassini, humanity will have deposed a little gift inside the core of a gas giant in maybe a few thousand years.
It was a pleasure knowing you, your voyages and the things you accomplished. I was jittery in front of the livestream when you achieved SOI with a 96 min burn on a trajectory that led you through the (of course) Cassini division; when you delivered Huygens to Titan, and when Huygens broadcast to you until you were under its horizon; when you took one of the most astounding portraits of Saturn and the Earth, when you flew through the plumes of Enceladus, and when you caught the Sun glinting off Titan's ice-cold, but strangely fluid Northern lakes.
You will be greatly missed, but you went out in style, bravely firing the last of your fuel in order to keep the antenna pointed at Earth, when you sampled and tasted the elusive upper atmosphere of the giant you circled for thirteen years.
As an afterthought, your plutonim oxide pellets were covered in metallic iridium in order to keep the PuO2 from dispersing into the atmosphere on entry (in case of an engine failure at liftoff). Iridium is highly heat resistant. If droplets of it survive intact, they will sink right into the nucleus of Saturn, as there is probably no place there denser than Iridium. So, while there is no more Cassini, humanity will have deposed a little gift inside the core of a gas giant in maybe a few thousand years.
Watch on 
