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Cassini–Huygens

Cassini–Huygens launched on 15 October 1997: the Cassini orbiter built and flown by JPL for NASA, carrying ESA's Huygens lander, with the Italian Space Agency also contributing. After gravity assists including a December 2000 flyby of Jupiter, it entered orbit around Saturn on 1 July 2004 — the first spacecraft ever to orbit the planet.

On 14 January 2005 Huygens descended to the surface of Titan, the first landing in the outer solar system, revealing river networks and plains under the orange haze. Over thirteen years at Saturn, Cassini found hydrocarbon lakes on Titan and water-ice plumes venting from the moon Enceladus — with early clues from its magnetometer — while its imaging team, led by Carolyn Porco, documented the rings and moons in extraordinary detail.

With its fuel nearly spent, Cassini ended in the "Grand Finale": a deliberate plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on 15 September 2017, again to protect possibly habitable moons.

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