Cassini makes final flyby of Titan before death plunge

Washington : On its course for the September 15 plunge into Saturn, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has made the "goodbye kiss" flyby of the planet's giant moon Titan.

The spacecraft made its closest approach to Titan on Monday at 3.04 pm EDT (12.34 a.m. IST Wednesday), at an altitude of 119,049 kilometeres above the moon's surface, NASA said.

This distant encounter is referred to informally as "the goodbye kiss" by mission engineers, because it provides a gravitational nudge that sends the spacecraft toward its dramatic ending in Saturn's upper atmosphere.

The geometry of the flyby causes Cassini to slow down slightly in its orbit around Saturn. This lowers the altitude of its flight over the planet so that the spacecraft goes too deep into Saturn's atmosphere to survive, because friction with the atmosphere will cause Cassini to burn up.

"Cassini has been in a long-term relationship with Titan, with a new rendezvous nearly every month for more than a decade," said Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"This final encounter is something of a bittersweet goodbye, but as it has done throughout the mission, Titan's gravity is once again sending Cassini where we need it to go," Maize said.