Much more than a five year mission...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cassini-final-moments-plunges-saturn-170000526.html


The Cassini spacecraft that was launched on October 15 1997 is low on fuel so NASA is ending it's mission by sending it to a firey death plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.
After a seven year journey it began studying the massive planet, it's rings, moons and the space surrounding it all since 2004...a spectacularly successful mission that have thrilled and enlightened scientists and casual observers alike.
It has traveled almost 4 billion miles, has sent back over 453,000 images and so much more.
Many of the thousands of scientists and engineers around the world have spent their careers as a part of this mission..a few up to 30 years.

One startlingly discovery is everyone assumed there was water present on only the inner planets...this mission proved them wrong and now they know there is a lot of water existing on the outer planets also and some moons...and there used to be a lot more in the past.
Where there is water there could be life in some form.


This mission should have ended years ago but they used the gravity of Titan, a moon bigger than the planet Mercury, as an engine to continually slingshot this satellite into many more orbits around the planet and conserve fuel.
They are using this same technique to explore Jupiter and Europa on the Juno mission right now.


For early risers the NASA channel is on right now talking about the mission and it's discoveries and in about 10 minutes coverage of the final event commences.
For those that can get this channel this is something special...I think you can replay a live stream of these events at mission control and watch it here at 7am est.
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#public

A job much more than just well done, mission accomplished...RIP Cassini.