Cassini: Trip Reset

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In 1997, we aimed a rocket towards Saturn and sent a 13-foot-wide satellite off on a mission to explore the strange worlds in our own (relative) backyard.

This month, NASA announced plans to extend the Cassini space probe's Saturn sojourn until 2017–nine years longer than its original end date of 2008.

Why, exactly, does Cassini need those extra years?

"Cassini: Trip Reset," a Boing Boing special feature