Sept. 15, 2017 (5:45 a.m. PDT) Cassini has completed its mission at Saturn. As predicted, the spacecraft lost contact with Earth at 4:55 a.m. PDT (7:55 a.m. EDT).
The Cassini spacecraft was 6.8 meters (22 ft) high and 4 meters (13 ft) wide. Spacecraft complexity was increased by its trajectory (flight path) to Saturn, and by the ambitious science at its destination. Cassini had 1,630 interconnected electronic components, 22,000 wire connections, and 14 kilometers (8.7 mi) of cabling. The core control computer CPU was a redundant MIL-STD-1750A system. The main propulsion system consisted of one prime and one backup R-4D rocket engine. The thrust of each engine was 490 newtons and the total spacecraft delta-v was about 2,040 meters per second.
Also general embedded system design thread.
