What to expect during Cassini's final hours

The Cassini mission is the longest-lived orbiter flying beyond Earth. We are now just days away from its end. I will be at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for Cassini's last three days, keeping vigil over it as I did for Rosetta last year. If you're a member of the media who will also be at JPL this week, I'd like to hear from you.

Here is a look at what to expect from the great mission during its final hours. The information in the table below is sourced from the NASA Cassini End of Mission press kit; a media advisory emailed from JPL; and Jason Perry's final Cassini Looking Ahead article.

We are going to be shoveling images from Cassini into our image library this week. A lot of them are processed by space imaging enthusiasts and aren't available on NASA websites. Check out the images in the Saturn section of the Bruce Murray Space Image Library, or a list of all the photos in the library that are tagged "Cassini," or all amateur-processed Saturn system images on our site.