As NASA’s Cassini mission flames out over Saturn, scientists mark bittersweet end of mission

In the dark of the early morning, planetary scientist Andy Ingersoll stood alone and slightly stooped at a coffee cart at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. More than 900 million miles across the solar system, the 2-ton Cassini spacecraft that he worked on for more than 20 years was being ripped apart and vaporizing in the cloud tops of Saturn.