The JPL website gives you updates every five minutes as Cassini goes toward the Rings of Saturn:
They also give a timetable for The Grand Finale:
Man, I remember when there was a strong belief among whackos that the Cassini spacecraft was going to blow up on launch, litter uranium all around the world, and basically end human life. I am glad that did not happen.
A great JPL movie (~3 minutes) about the entire program - obviously designed to tug at the old heart strings. 
Can’t wait for the pictures!
I was really hoping this was going to be about Oleg Cassini.
Argh why can’t they post speeds in m/s?
PU-238 actually, but the point stands.
It was also an issue in the 1959 TV show Men Into Space, where radioactive material was disposed of by shooting it into the sun.
Did You Know? The maximum speed clocked by Cassini was 98,346 mph (44 kilometers per second) relative to the sun on June 25, 1999.
This must’ve been during a planetary slingshot. Which planet? Mars?
IDK but doubt mars to be that significant, helpful yes, but just too small too far and too slow to be more then a minor boost and it’s losing speed heading against the sun to get to mars. Some of these get slingshotted around the earth several times (and even venus IIRC) to get to the outer planets, Venus may be possible as it is moving the fastest in it’s orbit (besides mercury, but that’s too small too far too much in the wrong direction for this), Venus is close and also fast, so might be worth it to go in to come out faster. And a craft leaving earth heading towards Venus would have a much greater velocity than Venus due to the gravity of the sun. Jupiter however is responsible for the fastest probe we ever sent, Voyager 1 so Jupiter is also a option. The other option I can think of is a highly elliptical orbit around Saturn, even an aerial capture maneuver, but that velocity seems too high.
The max speed was 2 years after launch. I don’t think Cassini could get to Jupiter or Saturn that quickly?
I assume his remains are in Paris. That’s where he died, and had spent the last fortysome years of his life.
Ftom WiKi:
So mars was not in the picture. Since it was launched in 10-15-97, and made it’s second swing by earth in 6-18-99 is it possible that the earth was the boost to the highest speed as igt is apx 2 years, but Venus is not out of the picture and as orbital velocities would be higher there and the planets may be very close (still apx within the 2 years). But yes if it was 2 years into the mission and did a earth flyby in that year, Jupiter, and Saturn is out of the picture, along with Mars as it never got there.
Looking further into the WiKi:
So the 2 year time frame fits both earth and Venus. The orbital speeds from Venus to the Asteroid Belt seem higher than that of the earth to Jupiter (where it got another boost), as the astroid belt is pretty close to the big J.
Hey thanks for the info. From Wiki’s timeline and from this,
we know that v max was from the second Venus slingshot. Here’s a brief timeline:
1997-10-15: Earth (launch)
1998-04-26: Venus slingshot (176 mi - distance)
1999-06-24: Venus slingshot (3,761 mi)
1999-06-25: v max, 98,346 mph
1999-08-18: Earth-Moon system, slingshot (728 mi - per Wikipedia, is this distance to center of mass of E-M system? I would hope so!)
2000-12-30: Jupiter slingshot (6,122,323 mi)
2004-07-01: Saturn (orbital insertion)
2005-01-14: Titan (landed, Huygens Lander)
Bumped.
A nice NYT short film and article on Cassini’s last days: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/science/cassini-saturn-nasa.html?mcubz=1
Nm
Oleg Cassini, dammit!