Cassini Orbits Through September 2017

This picture traces Cassini's orbits from Saturn orbit insertion, on 1 July 2004, through the planned end of the mission, on 15 September 2017.

Saturn is in the center, with the orbit of its largest moon Titan in red and the orbits of its six other inner satellites in white.

Cassini's prime mission, completed in 2008, is shown in green. Its first mission extension, which was known as the Equinox Mission and ended in 2010, is shown in orange. The completed orbits of its second mission extension, known as the Solstice Mission, are shown in purple. Orbits after Cassini's 15th anniversary of launch, on 15 October 2012, appear in dark grey. These include orbits that pass inside Saturn's innermost ring, which start in April 2017.

Flybys are a major element of Cassini's tour. The spacecraft's looping, elliptical path around Saturn is carefully designed to enable occasional visits to the many moons in the system. All flybys provide an opportunity to learn more about Saturn's icy satellites, and encounters with giant Titan are actually used to navigate the spacecraft, changing its orbit or setting up future flybys.

Many of the most exciting encounters are "targeted" flybys, for which Cassini's flight path is steered so the spacecraft will pass by a specific moon at a predetermined distance, referred to as "closest approach". Cassini's targeted flybys have yielded incredible close-up views and many groundbreaking science results.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see The Active Sun Boosts Titan's Outer Atmosphere