On September 15, 1968, the Soviet Union launched the Zond 5 spacecraft, carrying tortoises and other animals on a mission to orbit the moon and return to Earth. The spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome using a Proton rocket and took three days to reach the moon. The two tortoises on board were Russian steppes tortoises, and the mission also included wine flies, mealworms, plants, and seeds. This was the first time animals had traveled into deep space and around the moon. After completing its lunar orbit, the Zond 5 spacecraft turned back toward Earth. It was intended to land in Kazakhstan on September 22, but the spacecraft's guidance system failed, causing it to splash down in the Indian Ocean instead. Soviet recovery teams retrieved the capsule and found that the tortoises and other organisms were alive, though they had lost some weight during the journey. The Soviet recovery ship Vasily Golovnin retrieved the capsule from the ocean and returned to what is now Mumbai, India, on October 3. The capsule was then transported to Moscow via an Antonov-12 cargo plane and eventually opened, revealing the tortoises in good health. Today, the Zond 5 capsule is on display at the RSC Energia museum in Korolev, Russia. In September 1968, the Space Race to the moon was at its peak. NASA was just three months away from the historic Apollo 8 mission, which would send the first astronauts around the moon. The success of Zond 5 raised concerns in the U.S. that the Soviets might soon send a cosmonaut on a similar mission. A U.S. reconnaissance satellite, known as Corona, captured images of a Soviet N-1 rocket on the launch pad at Baikonur. These images, combined with the apparent success of Zond 5, may have influenced NASA's decision to proceed with the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, bringing the world one step closer to a moon landing. On September 15, 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft ended its 13-year mission by crashing into Saturn. The mission was concluded in a controlled descent to prevent the spacecraft from contaminating Saturn's icy moons, such as Enceladus, which scientists believe could harbor conditions suitable for life. This final phase of the mission was called Cassini's Grand Finale. Launched in 1997, the $3.26 billion Cassini mission entered orbit around Saturn in 2004 and deployed the European Huygens probe to Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. Originally scheduled to last until 2008, the mission was extended twice, ultimately concluding in September 2017. During its time in space, Cassini discovered new moons around Saturn, observed a mysterious hexagon-shaped storm at the planet's north pole, and captured detailed images of Saturn's intricate ring system.