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Space... the final frontier...

...in barely just 8 days time we will bid farewell to the Cassini Space Probe as the NASA Scientists plunge this mighty warrior into the atmosphere of Saturn on it's 22nd and final 'close orbit' of Saturn on the 15th of this month... I will probably actually shed a tear methinks... I have followed the wonderful crafts mission from the day that it took off in 1997 soit will be like losing an old friend to me... on this link below... cheers,

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/saturn-plunge-nears-for-cassini-spacecraft
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Saturn Plunge Nears for Cassini Spacecraft

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is shown heading for the gap between Saturn and its rings during one of 22 such dives of the mission's finale in this illustration. The spacecraft will make a final plunge into the planet's atmosphere on Sept. 15.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech


NASA's Cassini spacecraft is 18 days from its mission-ending dive into the atmosphere of Saturn. Its fateful plunge on Sept. 15 is a foregone conclusion -- an April 22 gravitational kick from Saturn's moon Titan placed the two-and-a-half ton vehicle on its path for impending destruction. Yet several mission milestones have to occur over the coming two-plus weeks to prepare the vehicle for one last burst of trailblazing science.

"The Cassini mission has been packed full of scientific firsts, and our unique planetary revelations will continue to the very end of the mission as Cassini becomes Saturn’s first planetary probe, sampling Saturn's atmosphere up until the last second," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We'll be sending data in near real time as we rush headlong into the atmosphere -- it's truly a first-of-its-kind event at Saturn."


Team members reflect on what has made the NASA/ESA Cassini mission such an epic journey -- the extraordinary spacecraft, tremendous science and historic international collaboration. This video uses a combination of animations and actual imagery returned over the course of the mission.


The spacecraft is expected to lose radio contact with Earth within about one to two minutes after beginning its descent into Saturn's upper atmosphere. But on the way down, before contact is lost, eight of Cassini's 12 science instruments will be operating. In particular, the spacecraft‘s ion and neutral mass spectrometer (INMS), which will be directly sampling the atmosphere's composition, potentially returning insights into the giant planet's formation and evolution. On the day before the plunge, other Cassini instruments will make detailed, high-resolution observations of Saturn's auroras, temperature, and the vortices at the planet's poles. Cassini's imaging camera will be off during this final descent, having taken a last look at the Saturn system the previous day (Sept. 14).

In its final week, Cassini will pass several milestones en route to its science-rich Saturn plunge. (Times below are predicted and may change slightly; see https://go.nasa.gov/2wbaCBT for updated times.)

-- Sept. 9 -- Cassini will make the last of 22 passes between Saturn itself and its rings -- closest approach is 1,044 miles (1,680 kilometers) above the clouds tops.

-- Sept. 11 -- Cassini will make a distant flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Even though the spacecraft will be at 73,974 miles (119,049 kilometers) away, the gravitational influence of the moon will slow down the spacecraft slightly as it speeds past. A few days later, instead of passing through the outermost fringes of Saturn's atmosphere, Cassini will dive in too deep to survive the friction and heating.

-- Sept. 14 -- Cassini's imaging cameras take their last look around the Saturn system, sending back pictures of moons Titan and Enceladus, the hexagon-shaped jet stream around the planet's north pole, and features in the rings.

-- Sept. 14 (5:45 p.m. EDT / 2:45 p.m. PDT) -- Cassini turns its antenna to point at Earth, begins a communications link that will continue until end of mission, and sends back its final images and other data collected along the way.

-- Sept. 15 (4:37 a.m. EDT / 1:37 a.m. PDT) -- The "final plunge" begins. The spacecraft starts a 5-minute roll to position INMS for optimal sampling of the atmosphere, transmitting data in near real time from now to end of mission.

-- Sept. 15 (7:53 a.m. EDT / 4:53 a.m. PDT) -- Cassini enters Saturn's atmosphere. Its thrusters fire at 10 percent of their capacity to maintain directional stability, enabling the spacecraft's high-gain antenna to remain pointed at Earth and allowing continued transmission of data.

-- Sept. 15 (7:54 a.m. EDT / 4:54 a.m. PDT) -- Cassini's thrusters are at 100 percent of capacity. Atmospheric forces overwhelm the thrusters' capacity to maintain control of the spacecraft's orientation, and the high-gain antenna loses its lock on Earth. At this moment, expected to occur about 940 miles (1,510 kilometers) above Saturn's cloud tops, communication from the spacecraft will cease, and Cassini's mission of exploration will have concluded. The spacecraft will break up like a meteor moments later.

As Cassini completes its 13-year tour of Saturn, its Grand Finale -- which began in April -- and final plunge are just the last beat. Following a four-year primary mission and a two-year extension, NASA approved an ambitious plan to extend Cassini's service by an additional seven years. Called the Cassini Solstice Mission, the extension saw Cassini perform dozens more flybys of Saturn's moons as the spacecraft observed seasonal changes in the atmospheres of Saturn and Titan. From the outset, the planned endgame for the Solstice Mission was to expend all of Cassini's maneuvering propellant exploring, then eventually arriving in the ultra-close Grand Finale orbits, ending with safe disposal of the spacecraft in Saturn's atmosphere.

"The end of Cassini's mission will be a poignant moment, but a fitting and very necessary completion of an astonishing journey," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The Grand Finale represents the culmination of a seven-year plan to use the spacecraft’s remaining resources in the most scientifically productive way possible. By safely disposing of the spacecraft in Saturn's atmosphere, we avoid any possibility Cassini could impact one of Saturn's moons somewhere down the road, keeping them pristine for future exploration."

Since its launch in 1997, the findings of the Cassini mission have revolutionized our understanding of Saturn, its complex rings, the amazing assortment of moons and the planet's dynamic magnetic environment. The most distant planetary orbiter ever launched, Cassini started making astonishing discoveries immediately upon arrival and continues today. Icy jets shoot from the tiny moon Enceladus, providing samples of an underground ocean with evidence of hydrothermal activity. Titan's hydrocarbon lakes and seas are dominated by liquid ethane and methane, and complex pre-biotic chemicals form in the atmosphere and rain to the surface. Three-dimensional structures tower above Saturn's rings, and a giant Saturn storm circled the entire planet for most of a year. Cassini's findings at Saturn have also buttressed scientists' understanding of processes involved in the formation of planets.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.
 
...as I have mentioned before... I have followed Cassini since it's launch date and have kept track of every part of it's mission and to think that Cassini plunges to it's death on Friday really does make me feel sad... as I've also said before... it really is like losing an old friend... and as this article below tells us... Australia is responsible for it's final glorious plunge into Saturn... we're 'murdering it' lol!... as they always say... "all god things come to an end"... and what a glorious way to end it all!... from this website below... cheers.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sc...y-death-in-saturns-skies-20170913-gygem0.html


Australia takes charge of guiding Cassini to its fiery death in Saturn's skies



On Friday, at 8.31pm, the spacecraft Cassini will enter Saturn's atmosphere, where turbulence will tear it apart.

The pieces will melt and disintegrate as they race across the gas giant's skies like a shooting star.

Scientists in Australia are responsible for controlling the probe's final descent, and hearing its final precious words.

Many of them have been listening to the satellite's broadcasts for 20 years.

"We have been with Cassini since it opened its eyes on the universe," says Glen Nagle, outreach lead at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex.

"And we'll be with it till its last breath of data."


Cassini, launched in 1997, has spent the past 13 years orbiting Saturn.


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An artists' impression of Cassini entering the atmosphere. Photo: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech
Perhaps its most amazing discovery is an ocean, filled with salts and simple organic molecules, existing on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Along with another of Saturn's moons, Titan, Enceladus is now considered one of the most promising places in our solar system to search for life.

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An artists' impression of Cassini shooting across Saturn's skies as it disintegrates and melts. It will look like a shooting star. Photo: NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech

In finding the possibility of life, Cassini condemned itself to violent death.

Disintegration in Saturn's atmosphere means there is no chance any Earth microbes that may cling to the satellite could contaminate either moon.

On Friday afternoon at 1.15, the Canberra space centre will take over tracking the satellite using two huge dishes mounted at Tidbinbilla, just outside the city.

Canberra will be responsible for sending a continuous signal to the probe as it plunges towards Saturn.

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Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex Photo: CSIRO - CDSCC / Supplied

This signal locks into the spacecraft's computers and provides a timing code, ensuring Cassini executes each manoeuvre at the right time.

The code is accurate to trillionths of a second.

Cassini will try to gather as much scientific data as possible in its final moments and beam it back to Tidbinbilla via radio waves.

Instruments will try to measure the composition of Saturn's atmosphere, its temperature and magnetic field.

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Scientists will monitor Cassini's last moments from inside the control room in Canberra. Photo: CSIRO - CDSCC / Supplied

The scientists in Tidbinbilla are aware they only get a single shot at this.

Things have been tenser than usual as they check and recheck systems for bugs and conduct dress rehearsals for Friday.

Inside Saturn's atmosphere, Cassini won't burn.

The planet's -142 degree skies are far too cold for that. Instead, NASA says, it will be smashed into pieces by turbulence.

Atmospheric friction will then heat those pieces to about 1300 degrees, and they will melt away to nothing.

1409cassini729px.jpg


In the control room in Tidbinbilla, Australian scientists will hear the signal first waver, and then go silent altogether.

"It's been a daily part of our lives," says Mr Nagle, who has been with this mission for 15 years.

"And when that signal disappears – it's not like losing a friend or family member.

"It's kind of like the last episode of your favourite TV show. You've watched this story for 20 years. And it's not going to be there next week.

"They are just machines, and you're not going to cry over a machine ending. But it is the ending of a thing and you will miss it."

After the signal goes dark, the scientists will keep their dishes pointed at Saturn for another hour and a half.

Just in case an old friend has any last words for us.
 
...alas!... my old friend Cassini has now gone... R.I.P Cassini... you were a beautiful little beast weren't you?... I watched this video from this website below at NASA...


...and yes... I did choke up a tad... it was such a glorious finale to an illustrious mission but was so sad the see her die... I will miss following her adventures as I have done from the day that she was launched... farewell sweet Cassini... cheers.
 
...from this website below... more on Cassini... cheers.

Cassini spacecraft makes final plunge into Saturn

NASA press release

15 September 2017 Astronomy Now



Saturn’s active, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus sinks behind the giant planet in a farewell portrait from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
A thrilling epoch in the exploration of our solar system came to a close today, as NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made a fateful plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, ending its 13-year tour of the ringed planet.

“This is the final chapter of an amazing mission, but it’s also a new beginning,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Cassini’s discovery of ocean worlds at Titan and Enceladus changed everything, shaking our views to the core about surprising places to search for potential life beyond Earth.”

Telemetry received during the plunge indicates that, as expected, Cassini entered Saturn’s atmosphere with its thrusters firing to maintain stability, as it sent back a unique final set of science observations. Loss of contact with the Cassini spacecraft occurred at 7:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 a.m. PDT), with the signal received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna complex in Canberra, Australia.

“It’s a bittersweet, but fond, farewell to a mission that leaves behind an incredible wealth of discoveries that have changed our view of Saturn and our solar system, and will continue to shape future missions and research,” said Michael Watkins, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which manages the Cassini mission for the agency. JPL also designed, developed and assembled the spacecraft.

Cassini’s plunge brings to a close a series of 22 weekly “Grand Finale” dives between Saturn and its rings, a feat never before attempted by any spacecraft.

“The Cassini operations team did an absolutely stellar job guiding the spacecraft to its noble end,” said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL. “From designing the trajectory seven years ago, to navigating through the 22 nail-biting plunges between Saturn and its rings, this is a crack shot group of scientists and engineers that scripted a fitting end to a great mission. What a way to go. Truly a blaze of glory.”

As planned, data from eight of Cassini’s science instruments was beamed back to Earth. Mission scientists will examine the spacecraft’s final observations in the coming weeks for new insights about Saturn, including hints about the planet’s formation and evolution, and processes occurring in its atmosphere.

“Things never will be quite the same for those of us on the Cassini team now that the spacecraft is no longer flying,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL. “But, we take comfort knowing that every time we look up at Saturn in the night sky, part of Cassini will be there, too.”

Cassini launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at Saturn in 2004. NASA extended its mission twice – first for two years, and then for seven more. The second mission extension provided dozens of flybys of the planet’s icy moons, using the spacecraft’s remaining rocket propellant along the way. Cassini finished its tour of the Saturn system with its Grand Finale, capped by Friday’s intentional plunge into the planet to ensure Saturn’s moons – particularly Enceladus, with its subsurface ocean and signs of hydrothermal activity – remain pristine for future exploration.

While the Cassini spacecraft is gone, its enormous collection of data about Saturn – the giant planet, its magnetosphere, rings and moons – will continue to yield new discoveries for decades to come.

“Cassini may be gone, but its scientific bounty will keep us occupied for many years,” Spilker said. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what we can learn from the mountain of data it has sent back over its lifetime.”
 
...sorry folks... I'm on a Cassini binge at the moment... yet another website... cheers.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7792/

Impact Site: Cassini's Final Image

Photojournal: PIA21895

September 15, 2017

This monochrome view is the last image taken by the imaging cameras on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. It looks toward the planet's night side, lit by reflected light from the rings, and shows the location at which the spacecraft would enter the planet's atmosphere hours later.

A natural color view, created using images taken with red, green and blue spectral filters, is also provided (Figure B). The imaging cameras obtained this view at approximately the same time that Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer made its own observations of the impact area in the thermal infrared.


Figure B
This location -- the site of Cassini's atmospheric entry -- was at this time on the night side of the planet, but would rotate into daylight by the time Cassini made its final dive into Saturn's upper atmosphere, ending its remarkable 13-year exploration of Saturn.

The view was acquired on Sept. 14, 2017 at 19:59 UTC (spacecraft event time). The view was taken in visible light using the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of 394,000 miles (634,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is about 11 miles (17 kilometers).

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and https://www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at https://ciclops.org.

Credit
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
 
...even though Cassini is getting all of the glory at the moment we shouldn't forget what a magnificent mission that Juno is continuing to do at the moment... such magnificent images... on this website below... cheers.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21780/juno-s-eighth-close-approach-to-jupiter
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Juno’s Eighth Close Approach to Jupiter

This series of enhanced-color images shows Jupiter up close and personal, as NASA’s Juno spacecraft performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant planet. The images were obtained by JunoCam.

From left to right, the sequence of images taken on Sept. 1, 2017 from 3:03 p.m. to 3:11 p.m. PDT (6:03 p.m. to 6:11 p.m. EDT). At the times the images were taken, the spacecraft ranged from 7,545 to 14,234 miles (12,143 to 22,908 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude range of -28.5406 to -44.4912 degrees.

Points of Interest include "Dalmatian Zone/Eye of Odin," "Dark Eye/STB Ghost East End," "Coolest Place on Jupiter," and "Renslow/Hurricane Rachel." The final image in the series on the right shows Jupiter’s south pole coming into view.

JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at:

www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam

More information about Juno is at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu

Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/ Gerald Eichstädt/Sean Doran

Last Updated: Sept. 12, 2017
Editor: Martin Perez
Tags: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Juno, Jupiter, Solar System
 
...here are some feelings from the people that have been with Cassini all her life (and death)... it's quite a surprise to me on how different some of their feelings are compared to the others... from this website below... cheers.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/...-it-feels-to-say-goodbye-to-their-spacecraft/

The Cassini Team Reflects On How It Feels To Say Goodbye To Their Spacecraft


Mika McKinnon
Sep 17, 2017, 8:00am



Last week, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slammed into the day side of Saturn, the brief flash of its vaporisation marking the end of a 13-year mission. But it took people to turn this hunk of aluminium and silicon into an extension of our curiosity.

All photos: Mika McKinnon

For the past three days, I've chatted with engineers and scientists at the wooden tables dotting Jet Propulsion Laboratory's pedestrian mall and in the sage-scented gardens surrounding Caltech. These are the people behind Cassini's mission, who shepherded the spacecraft from concept to completion.

They are the collective heart, brains and soul that transform its measurements into data. From twenty-seven-year mission veterans to new hires in the past few months, they all shared complex reactions of pride, exhaustion, and sadness when faced with Cassini's Grand Finale.

"I'm wondering if my muse is disappearing," Jonathan Lunine tells me as a documentary crew charges past us in the courtyard. He's the interdisciplinary scientist coordinating the exploration of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. "Cassini will always be the touchstone for my career." Shaking off his morose reflectiveness, he finds a silver lining to share. "I'm looking forward to spending more time engaged with the data than planning."

Days before Cassini's final plunge, I asked David Doody, who supervises real time operations, how he was feeling. "Dread," he told me with with a laugh."This fine mission is ending, sailing off into the unknown."

Doody supervises realtime operations "where the rubber meets the road" — the human traffic directors for Cassini's incoming data that shunt ones and zeros to their appropriate stations. He started working on Cassini in 1997, and the mission's end has him reflective. But he won't be resting long now the mission is over: "I've got documentation to do."

Trina Rey is another long-time Cassini veteran who joined the team overnight in 1996 to help with "shake and bake" vibration and heat testing during spacecraft construction, and stuck around ever since.

"I've been calling into operations status meetings for twenty years," she tells me. "The last meeting is on Tuesday." The handkerchief she used to dab her eyes is Cassini-purple, perfectly coordinated with her official mission shirt.

"Every month or so, Cassini sends me this little burst of data. 'Here Trina, here's something you might not know...'," she teases before sobering. "It's going to take a while to get used to not having that."

When I ask Cassini flight controller Joan Stupik how she is feeling, she turns it around on me. "I'm used to seeing how [Cassini] is feeling every day." New to the mission, she was delighted to share excitement when scientists couldn't wait to share images of Saturn's wonky shepherd moons. For her, Friday morning was a bittersweet vigil, participating in the colour commentary of Cassini's final moments.


"I think I'm still in denial," Carl Murray confides during a lunch break as across the solar system Cassini makes its final photographic tour of the Saturn system on Thursday. "We still have images coming down. We have a functional spacecraft. What could possibly go wrong?"

Murray applied to join Cassini at the start of the mission using astrometry to explore images by exposing them until objects are backdropped by starry skies. That's how he found Peggy, a glitch in Saturn's outer ring that's yet to be fully explained. "Cassini has answered questions," he tells me. "But like any good mission should, it has produced so many more questions that need to be answered." A hint of a smile emerges as he contemplates the mysteries yet to be solved. "Maybe Monday is Day One of [answering them]."

"Cassini has answered questions. But like any good mission should, it has produced so many more questions that need to be answered."
After Cassini vaporizes in Saturn's storms, its final radio signal lost forever, the uncertain mood shifts and solidifies. A moment of sadness, intensity of emotion overwhelming even those who thought themselves immune, then applause and finally celebration takes hold.

"How are you?" I ask Andrew Ingersoll, an atmospheric scientist with the team. "I'm very lucky to have been a part of this mission, and to have been alive in the Space Age," he immediately responds. I soon learn of his career from Pioneer through Voyager to twenty-seven years working with Cassini, and how very excited he is to see how this deep-space craft fared at collecting an atmospheric sample for him to analyse. "Hydrogen and helium float up to the surface of Saturn," he explains. "Anything that isn't hydrogen or helium has to be ring rain coming down from above!"

I cross the auditorium to eavesdrop on John Casani, Cassini's pre-launch project manager, and Charles Elachi, former director of overseeing operations at JPL and Cassini's radar lead. "How are you feeling?" I ask in my now-habitual refrain. "I feel great!" Casani declares. "The spacecraft went out the way I hope to go out in my life: quickly!"

"And doing science to the end," Elachi teases.

"For me it was just a piece of aluminium and silicon," Casani says. "It's just parts until engineers do something with it." For all his pragmatism, he lights up when describing his favourite discoveries. "Enceladus," he declares without hesitation. In its first year around Saturn, Cassini discovered that this icy moon harbored not only a liquid ocean water below its icy crust, but that it had geysers spewing that water into space."There's a little, tiny rock in space venting water. It's incredible." Elachi holds himself back from interjecting, trying to wait his turn to be interviewed.

"In my book, this is one of the greatest science missions this country has ever undertaken," Elachi tells me. His top discovery is the lakes and seas of Titan. "Titan is like Earth, but the weather is all with liquid natural gas."

I wander the auditorium, talking to any purple-shirted mission team member I can find. Chuck Kirby spent nineteen years of his thirty-year career on Cassini. "It's bittersweet," he tells me. But he's excited about training for his new mission, NASA's SMAP satellite monitoring soil moisture. "I'd like to spend the rest of my career fighting climate change."

I spot one scientist in an orange shirt, yet bearing the same Cassini logo. Kareem Badaruddin is a tester for Cassini's brain, dedicated to finding problems to fix before they emerged in the field. "How are you?" I ask. "Tired," he says, but the longer we talk the more details emerge. He remembers coming to this same auditorium nearly twenty years ago to watch Cassini launch. His wife was very pregnant with their first child, and unimpressed when a hardware failure forced a launch scrub. They returned to bear witness as Cassini broke free of Earth's bonds on October 15th, and their son was born nine days later.

"My son and Cassini came to adulthood together," he tells me. "We got to Saturn when he was in first grade, discovered geysers on Enceladus when he was in second grade."

"In my book, this is one of the greatest science missions this country has ever undertaken"
Our early-morning gathering is an echo of an earlier time for Badaruddin. Cassini launched without an orbital insertion algorithm, the ability to use its reaction wheels, or the capacity to deploy the Huygen's probe. For the six years and eight months the spacecraft flew past Earth, Venus, and Jupiter while cruising to Saturn, Badaruddin walked to JPL at 3:30am to start his workday early, cramming to build capacity before the spacecraft's arrival at Saturn. "It's dark and cold," he tells me of early morning walks both past and present. "I saw three skunks this morning. I only saw one during all my walks before."

Family members are here, too, reminders that the unrelenting demands of orbital dynamics stretch beyond awkward 3am press events to witness the spacecraft's demise. Rosina Miaze is proud of her husband Earl's accomplishments as Cassini's program manager. But she's also written the mission timeline on her household calendar for years, turning down social plans for flybys and critical trajectory corrections.

"I can be alone on Christmas or invite all these European scientists to our home," she says, recalling the timing of Cassini releasing its European Space Agency-led Huygens probe on December 24, 2004. In the aftermath of the Grand Finale, the Maizes will be adding a personal note to their celebration. "Yesterday was our anniversary," she confides.
 
If you are around @Mr Stickyfingers , quick....

Mankind From Space

SBS, 10:10pm, Sun, 24 Sep 2017, 95 minutes

REPEAT

Mind-boggling data and CGI traces humankind's story from hunter-gatherer to dominant global species in this epic journey of discovery. Seen from the perspective of space, this shows the breath-taking extent of humankind's influence; how humans as a species have transformed the planet and produced an interconnected world of extraordinary complexity.



United Kingdom, English, Documentary, Historical, Society & Culture
 
If you are around @Mr Stickyfingers , quick....

Mankind From Space

SBS, 10:10pm, Sun, 24 Sep 2017, 95 minutes

REPEAT

Mind-boggling data and CGI traces humankind's story from hunter-gatherer to dominant global species in this epic journey of discovery. Seen from the perspective of space, this shows the breath-taking extent of humankind's influence; how humans as a species have transformed the planet and produced an interconnected world of extraordinary complexity.



United Kingdom, English, Documentary, Historical, Society & Culture


...thanks so much for that info kxk but I came back too late to watch it I'm afraid... I tried the SBS site but it wasn't there in 'Catchup' so I went to YouTube... it's there but is in French so it looks like I miss out but I will keep an eye out just in case they repeat it... but thanks for the heads up my friend... cheers.
 
...oh wow!... I so love this article... it seems that there is an alternative to setting up habitats for Astronauts on either the Moon or Mars itself... what an ingenious solution to a big problem for setting up a permanent base on either... I guess that it would be very similar to living underground in Cooberpedy in Australia I imagine... on this website below... cheers.

http://www.zmescience.com/science/geology/lava-tunnels-mars-moon-26092017/
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Lava tubes on Moon and Mars might be habitats for future colonies
Last updated on September 27th, 2017 at 10:26 pm by Mihai Andrei

Lava tubes on the Moon and Mars might provide the necessary protection when it comes to housing research stations or even future colonies.


Image credits: Thurston Lava Tube at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Big Island, Hawaii. Credits: Frank Schulenburg.

Like on Earth, Moon and Mars also have volcanic features — such as lava tubes. Lava tubes are basically lava caves formed in one of two ways: either through the crusting over of lava channels, or more rarely, from pāhoehoe flows where the lava is moving under the surface. After the lava leaves, it can leave behind a tunnel. Sometimes, the lava might re-emerge and might be injected into its old tunnels (due to the low resistance); once there, it expands and leaves behind even larger tunnels, sometimes reaching impressive sizes. Sometimes, complex tunnel systems are formed, connected to each other and to the surface.

By far the largest known lava tubes in the Solar System are on Venus. However, such tubes have also been discovered on the Moon, and especially on Mars. Considering the innumerable lava flows and lava channels on the flanks of Olympus Mons, it makes a lot of sense to expect truly gargantuan lava tube systems on the Red Planet. Scientists now believe that these tunnels can be used to shield future explorers from the massive amounts of radiation they would be exposed to on the surface.

Researchers can detect these tunnels remotely, through gravitational remote sensing. Things stand like this: we talk about the gravitational pull of a celestial body (let’s say, the Earth), but the gravitational field isn’t uniform. The same goes for the Moon, Mars, and everything else — nothing is really uniform. The Moon’s gravitational field, for example, looks like this:


Credits: NASA.

By studying localized gravitational anomalies, underground cavities — such as lava tunnels — can be discovered. But researchers are also working on more advanced methods. Leonardo Carrer and colleagues of the University of Trento presented a concept for a radar system specifically designed to detect lava tubes on the Moon from orbit. The idea is to send an electromagnetic pulse towards the planet and then detect a specific signature associated with these tunnels. Although it’s still early stages, there are promising results which may be used in the near future.

“The studies we have developed show that a multi- frequency sounding system is the best option for detecting lava tubes of very different dimensions. The electromagnetic simulations show that lava tubes have unique electromagnetic signatures, which can be detected from orbit irrespective of their orientation to the radar movement direction. Therefore, a mission carrying this instrument would enable a crucial step towards finding safe habitats on the Moon for human colonisation,” says Carrer.

Geologists have also learned that the distribution of such systems can be generous enough to facilitate the establishment of large stations, or perhaps even entire cities.

“The comparison of terrestrial, lunar and martian examples shows that, as you might expect, gravity has a big effect on the size of lava tubes. On Earth, they can be up to thirty metres across. In the lower gravity environment of Mars, we see evidence for lava tubes that are 250 metres in width. On the Moon, these tunnels could be a kilometre or more across and many hundreds of kilometres in length,” says Dr Riccardo Pozzobon, of the University of Padova. “These results have important implications for habitability and human exploration of the Moon but also for the search of extraterrestrial life on Mars. Lava tubes are environments shielded from cosmic radiation and protected from micrometeorites flux, potentially providing safe habitats for future human missions. They are also, potentially, large enough for quite significant human settlements – you could fit most of the historic city centre of Riga into a lunar lava tube.”

The work by Pozzobon and colleagues is already being used in the European Space Agency’s astronaut training programme, and might soon play a more central role in our plans to explore other planets.
 
...being that Cassini has now left us I have decided to follow this little machine for now until the next Deep Space mission to fill some time... the probe is called 'OSIRIS-REx' that is on a mission to scoop some samples from an Asteroid named 'Bennu'... the probe did a flyby of Earth to slingshot it towards the Asteroid and as it passed Earth it took this snapshot... Australia is in the image in the bottom left hand corner too!... there is a great video on the website that completely explains the mission too... on this website below... cheers.

https://www.space.com/38275-osiris-rex-earth-flyby-first-photo.html

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Earth Shines in Flyby Photo Snapped by NASA Asteroid Probe
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | September 26, 2017 05:05pm ET


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NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid-sampling spacecraft captured this photo of Earth on Sept. 22, 2017, shortly after performing a speed-boosting flyby of our planet.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft memorialized last week's brief swing by Earth with a nice photo of its home planet.

On Friday (Sept. 22), OSIRIS-REx zoomed 10,711 miles (17,237 kilometers) above Antarctica, acing a "gravity-assist" flyby designed to boost its speed and set its course toward a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu.

The probe took the newly released photo a few hours after that closest approach, when it was about 106,000 miles (170,000 km) from Earth, NASA officials said. [See more photos from the OSIRIS-REx Mission]

The view centers on the vast Pacific Ocean. Australia is at lower left, and the southwestern United States and Baja California are visible in the upper-right portion of the image. And don't worry: Rivers of tar are not oozing from the North Pole.

"The dark vertical streaks at the top of the image are caused by short exposure times (less than three milliseconds)," NASA officials wrote in an image description Tuesday (Sept. 26). "Short exposure times are required for imaging an object as bright as Earth, but are not anticipated for an object as dark as the asteroid Bennu, which the camera was designed to image."

The $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission — whose name is short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer — launched on Sept. 8, 2016. If all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will arrive at the 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) Bennu late next year.

OSIRIS-REx will study the rock from orbit for more than 18 months and then head in to snag a sample of dirt and gravel from Bennu's surface in July 2020. This material will parachute to Earth's surface inside a special return capsule in September 2023.

Scientists around the world will then analyze the sample, searching for clues about the solar system's early days and the role Bennu, and other asteroids like it, may have played in delivering life's building blocks to Earth.
 
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