How this NASA veteran got the world to tune into the space agency’s groundbreaking mission to Saturn

There were many moments during NASA’s two-decade-long mission to study Saturn and its moons, carried out by the Cassini spacecraft, when cosmic rays, design flaws, and other unexpected hurdles called for on-the-fly problem-solving from program manager Earl Maize. But none required more ingenuity than the live, interactive broadcast of the spacecraft’s “Grand Finale”—a five-month-long, 22-orbit sojourn between Saturn and its rings that culminated in a (purposefully) destructive dive into the planet’s atmosphere on September 15, 2017. To capture those last weeks of Cassini’s life, Maize had to manage the spacecraft’s dwindling fuel while transforming Cassini into a real-time broadcasting device—from a distance of roughly 930 million miles. “When [your device] is burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere, there’s not much opportunity to retrieve the footage,” he says. The payoff was worth it: The multifaceted campaign (which included social media updates, live web and TV broadcasts, a short film, and more) drove more than 3 million people to the mission’s landing page during the finale—and earned the team a 2018 Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program.