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This illustration shows Cassini above Saturn's northern hemisphere prior to making one of its Grand Finale dives.

During Cassini's Grand Finale, the spacecraft will make 22 orbits around Saturn that carry the spacecraft over the planet's north before diving between Saturn and its rings. At the conclusion of this final set of daring orbits, the spacecraft will plunge into Saturn's atmosphere, ending its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.