User blog:Nightstalker the Nightwing/In Memory Of NASA's Cassini-Huygens Space Probe

Having been in space for two decades, the Cassini-Huygens space probe will plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on September 15th, 2017 at 7:54 AM EDT, which will bring a grand finale to the long mission that scientists at NASA have been using to learn more about Saturn and its moons.

Why Destroy It?
According to NASA, the probe's fuel for its thrusters have almost been depleted, so ground controllers wouldn't be able to control it when it goes dead. There is evidence that there is liquid water on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, which may support  alien life. To prevent an collision with the moon, sending the probe into Saturn will make sure that the object would not contaminate the moons if it crashes there.

Source: NASA
"-- Sept. 9 -- Cassini will make the last 22 passes between Saturn itself and its rings -- closest approach is 1,044 miles (1,680 kilometers) above the cloud tops.

"-- Sept. 11 -- Cassini will make a distant flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Even though the spacecraft will be at 73,974 miles (119,049 kilometers) away, the gravitational influence of the moon will slow the spacecraft slightly as it speeds past. A few days later, instead of passing through the outermost fringes Saturn's atmosphere, Cassini will dive in too deep to survive the friction and heating.

"-- Sept. 14 -- Cassini's imaging cameras take their last look around the Saturn system, sending back pictures of moons Titan and Enceladus, the hexagon-shaped jet stream around the planet's north pole, and the features in the rings."

"-- Sept. 14  (5:45 p.m. EDT / 2:45 p.m. PDT)  -- Cassini turns its antenna to point at Earth, begins a communications link that will continue until end of mission, and sends back its final images and other data collected along the way.

"-- Sept. 15 (4:37 a.m. EDT / 1:37 a.m. PDT) -- The "final plunge" begins. The spacecraft starts a 5-minute roll to position INMS for optimal sampling of the atmosphere, transmitting data in near real time from now to end of mission.

"-- Sept. 15 (7:53 a.m. EDT / 4:53 a.m. PDT) -- Cassini enters Saturn's atmosphere. Its thrusters fire at 10 percent of their capacity to maintain directional stability, enabling the spacecraft's high-gain antenna to remain pointed at Earth and allowing continued transmission of data.

"-- Sept. 15 (7:54 a.m. EDT / 4:54 a.m. PDT) -- Cassini's thrusters are at 100 percent of capacity. Atmospheric forces overwhelm the thrusters capacity to maintain control of the spacecraft's orientation, and the high-gain antenna loses its lock on Earth. At this moment, expected to occur about 940 miles (1,510 kilometers) above Saturn's cloud tops, communication with the spacecraft will cease, and Cassini's mission of exploration will have concluded. The spacecraft will break up like a meteor moments later.