https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6818

Cassini Heads Toward Final Close Encounter with Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
April 19, 2017

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its final close flyby of Saturn's haze-enshrouded moon Titan this weekend. The flyby marks the mission's
final opportunity for up-close observations of the lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons that spread across the moon's northern polar region, and
the last chance to use its powerful radar to pierce the haze and make
detailed images of the surface.

Closest approach to Titan is planned for 11:08 p.m. PDT on April 21 (2:08
a.m. EDT April 22). During the encounter, Cassini will pass as close as
608 miles (979 kilometers) above Titan's surface at a speed of about 13,000
mph (21,000 kph).

The flyby is also the gateway to Cassini's Grand Finale -- a final set
of 22 orbits that pass between the planet and its rings, ending with a
plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15 that will end the mission. During the close
pass on April 21, Titan's gravity will bend Cassini's orbit around Saturn, shrinking it slightly, so that instead of passing just outside the rings,
the spacecraft will begin its finale dives which pass just inside the
rings.

The flyby is Cassini's 127th targeted encounter with Titan. A targeted
flyby is one for which the spacecraft uses its rocket engine or thrusters
to accurately aim toward the encounter.

Cassini's radar instrument will look for changes in Titan's methane lakes
and seas, and attempt for the first (and last) time to study the depth
and composition of Titan's smaller lakes. The radar instrument will also
search a final time for Titan's "magic island," a mysterious feature in
one of the moon's seas that changed in appearance over the course of several flybys. Scientists hope to gain additional insights to help them determine whether the feature is waves, bubbles, floating debris, or something else entirely.

More information about Cassini's final Titan flyby is available at:

https://go.nasa.gov/2nFHaTo

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.

More information about Cassini:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

News Media Contact
Preston Dyches
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-394-7013
preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

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