It’s very sad to say goodbye to Cassini today, but it’s also a chance to celebrate the mission’s many achievements.

As well as Cassini-Huygen’s extraordinary scientific contribution, it has had a huge impact on the planetary science community around  the world.  Europlanet is a direct result of the collaboration between the European scientists involved in Cassini-Huygens who, in 2002, decided to found a network to build better links between European researchers involved in planetary science and overcome fragmentation within the community. In 2005, Europlanet received funding from the European Commission’s Framework 6 programme. 12 years later we have a sustainable community of more than 85 instiutions, with more than 800 planetary scientists preparing to attend our annual meeting in Riga, Latvia, next week.

On behalf of the Europlanet Community, we would like to express our admiration and gratitude to this incredible mission and all the people around the world that made it happen.