CANBERRA, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- A 20-year-long deep space mission will come to an end on Friday when NASA's Cassini spacecraft will deliberately crash into Saturn's atmosphere, and Australian astronomers will be in the box seat to capture the craft's final moments.
Cassini has been in space for 20 years and has been closely studying Saturn, its rings and nearby moons, but now that it is running out of fuel, it is preparing for its final mission -- a controlled crash into Saturn's dense atmosphere.
Astronomers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization's (CSIRO) Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) have been charged with recording the craft's final moments, after monitoring the spacecraft through "every step of its journey," including its launch in 1997 and the confirmation of its successful orbit of Saturn in 2004.
Since it first began orbiting Saturn in 2004, Cassini has captured hundreds of thousands of images of the ringed planet -- many of those iconic -- and has also shed light on vital information about Saturn, it's mesmerizing rings and its 62 known moons.
In a statement released on Wednesday, CSIRO CEO Dr Larry Marshall said it was an honor for the CSIRO and the CDSCC to collaborate with Cassini one final time.
"CSIRO has over 50 years of collaboration with NASA, and designing, building and operating major research facilities like CDSCC and ASKAP (the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder), and transitioning space technologies to many small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs)," Marshall said.
"Now, our team in Canberra will play a crucial role monitoring Cassini's final hours - its Grand Finale."
The CSIRO predicts the CDSCC will receive Cassini's final signals at about 9:54 p.m. Friday night.
