``I'm going to be very sad. I was there at the launch,'' he said yesterday.
The English-born Dr Griffin is an astronomer who once worked for Nasa in the US and photographed the launch of the Cassini space probe to Saturn in 1997.
The spacecraft has now begun its 142-day death spiral inside Saturn's rings and will pass through them 22 times over the coming months.
Its propellant is running low and Nasa scientists are concerned the probe could accidentally crash into one of Saturn's moons, New Zealand's Science Media Centre says.
Such a crash could contaminate part of the Saturnian system, including its many moons, with bacteria from Earth which had stuck to the spacecraft.
Instead, the spacecraft will be safely ``disposed'' of in Saturn's atmosphere.
Dr Griffin said that, apart from Earth, Saturn had long been his favourite among other planets in the Solar System.
The space probe had travelled more than a billion kilometres from Earth and after its destruction he would miss its observations
Cassini had done ``some amazing science'', transforming our understanding of the ``Saturnian system''.
Dr Griffin said he would ``definitely be looking'' from his backyard observatory when Cassini ended its mission in September.
