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NASA's Cassini spacecraft will have a dance unlike any other over the final months of its long journey. Cassini, launched in 1997, arrived at the Saturn system in 2004 to study the ringed planet and its moons. According to NASA, it begins its endgame Wednesday with a set of "ring-grazing orbits," diving through the unexplored outer edge of the main rings every seven days until April 22. NASA hopes Cassini will get closer looks at many of the planets' smaller moons, as well as sample ring particles and molecules of gases near the rings. "We're calling this phase of the mission Cassini's Ring-Grazing Orbits, because we'll be skimming past the outer edge of the rings," said Linda Spilker, a project scientist as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. But when dealing with cosmic matters, "grazing" is a relative term. "Even though we're flying closer to the F ring than we ever have, we'll still be more than 4,850 miles distant," said project manager Earl Maize, though the spacecraft will pass as close as 1,012 miles above Saturn's clouds during its final maneuvers. With Cassini's fuel running out, it will finally plunge into the planet's atmosphere on Sept. 15.