Planning CASSINI's Grand Finale - 2018 NASA Science Lecture

Mission planning is a core strength of JPL engineering, along with deep space communications and navigation. This talk looks back at the various scenarios and contingency plans the Cassini team made as they steered the spacecraft into unexplored space during its 2017 Grand Finale at Saturn. Sturm discussed how the possible scenarios -- some of which could have been mission-ending -- compared to the mission as it was actually flown, along with some science highlights from the finale.

Credit: NASA