PASADENA, Calif., June 30 (UPI) -- After nearly seven years of space travel, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is set to arrive at Saturn on Wednesday.
In a maneuver called orbit insertion, Cassini will slow itself down to be captured by the gravity of the giant ringed planet. Its rocket engine will fire about 10:15 p.m. ET, setting the craft on a trajectory that will take it through a gap in Saturn's rings called the Cassini gap, named after the Italian astronomer who discovered them.
The risky maneuver also will allow Cassini to fly as close as 12,500 miles above Saturn's cloudtops and take perhaps the sharpest photos ever of the planet, said mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
If the orbital insertion is successful, Cassini will begin a four-year mission to explore Saturn and its 31 moons. Later this year, the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which is attached to Cassini, will be sent to visit the largest of the bunch, Titan, a satellite larger than the planet Mercury.
Huygens will plunge through Titan's thick atmosphere to study the veiled surface below.
