when did the cassini spacecraft arrived at saturn
Cassini–Huygens Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn, studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004.[8] The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000). Its mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini's trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up[9][10] in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft.[11][12] The mission is widely perceived to have been successful beyond expectation. Cassini-Huygens has been described by NASA's Planetary Science Division Director as a "mission of firsts",[13] that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.
Exploration of Saturn The exploration of Saturn has been solely performed by crewless probes. Three missions were flybys, which formed an extended foundation of knowledge about the system. The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft, launched in 1997, was in orbit from 2004 to 2017.[1][2]
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.
Moon landing On 14 December 2013 at 13:12 UTC[46] Chang'e 3 soft-landed a rover on the Moon. This was the first lunar soft landing since Luna 24 on 22 August 1976.[47]