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Oak Ridge parts crash into Saturn with Cassini probe

This image made available by NASA in April 2017 shows a still from the short film "Cassini's Grand Finale," with the spacecraft diving between Saturn and the planet's innermost ring. Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004 and has been exploring it from orbit ever since. Cassini’s fuel tank is almost empty, so NASA has opted for a risky, but science-rich grand finale. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP) This image made available by NASA in April 2017 shows a still from the short film "Cassini's Grand Finale," with the spacecraft diving between Saturn and the planet's innermost ring. Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004 and has been exploring it from orbit ever since. Cassini’s fuel tank is almost empty, so NASA has opted for a risky, but science-rich grand finale. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)

By The Knoxville News Sentinel September 18, 2017 1 min read

The Cassini probe went out in a literal blaze of glory early Friday morning, and with it roughly $20 million worth of parts developed in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

NASA crashed the probe into Saturn’s atmosphere early Friday morning, where the school-bus sized spacecraft was quickly vaporized. NASA decided to end the probe’s 20-year, nearly five-billion-mile mission because the plutonium fuel that powers the spacecraft was running out.

If it had been allowed to run out, NASA said, it would not have been able to control the path of Cassini’s orbit, which could contaminate Saturn or one of its potentially life-sustaining moons with bacteria or other Earthen material.

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