Cassini's Huygens Probe Rendezvous with Titan

im333mfg writes "Tonight at 7:08pm PST, the Cassini spacecraft will be releasing the much anticipated Huygens Probe for a rendezvous with the Saturn moon Titan. It will be making a 22 day journey to the moon, and end up entering the atmosphere sometime on January 14th. 'Titan is one of the remaining puzzles of the solar system - while Cassini's imaging cameras and radar instrument have begun to reveal the details of its surface, the Huygens probe will be the first spacecraft to venture beneath Titan's thick clouds.'"

Comments

BBC News

[KrackerJax]

In addition to the numerous links in the post, here is an arcticle by the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/41 12917. stm

Some pretty pictures and informative text.

Re:BBC News

[Lord Prox]

ummmmm UTC -8:00 I think.

I never learned to read

[JPriest]

I read that as Rendezvous with Trillian (eg. ZeroConf).

Re:I never learned to read

[Ilan Volow]

When I first saw the headline I read it as "space probe uses jupiter moon to help reverse-engineer Apple networking technology".

I probably made such an interpretation because I've spent three months trying to create an XGrid interoperability layer in python only to be continually thwarted by strange undocumented stuff. At this point, misusing heavenly bodies for personal gain doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Good luck, Huygens...

[Buran]

Vaya con dios.

Re:Good luck, Huygens...

[some guy I know]

Vaya con dios.

Hostage mefisto, rabies.

Colonize

[elzurawka]

I wonder when we will have a probe on every single planet(that can be probed) Its the first step to taking it over, i say 200 years, and we will have a colony on most major inhabitible satalites. Too bad none of us will be around to c it, it will be amazing to be able to visit another plant

Re:Colonize

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you've been visiting "plants" all afternoon.

Re:Colonize

[elzurawka]

not till after family dinner....;D....ill be visiting planets all night

Re:Colonize

[Tablizer]

I wonder when we will have a probe on every single planet(that can be probed) Its the first step to taking it over, i say 200 years, and we will have a colony on most major inhabitible satalites.

The radiation around the gas giants is heavy. It would take some huge sheilding. I don't know how much protection Titan's atmosphere provides. Drilling caves may be the way to go. My guess is that colonizing will not be practical until AI robots help harness and process materials to make a colony self-sustaining instead of dependant on Earth-sent materials. The sunlight is so dim near Saturn that it would be tough to grow food. Some way to harvest fuel from Titan or the like may have to be devised. But generally you need other chemicals not found at Titan to make full use of Titan's atmosphere. Such may have to be harvested from the rings or icy moons.

Re:Colonize

[Esion Modnar]

sunlight is so dim near Saturn

A bright full moon here probably beats Titan's sun at high noon. For food production, think artificial lighting powered by fusion reactors (probably will have developed that by then).

Let's hope all goes well!

[mOoZik]

A lot of time, money, and hope has been invested in this project. Let's wish it the extra bit of luck so that all goes to plan!

Re:Let's hope all goes well!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slightly OT...

Now this probe did cost a bit: At 350 kg and $600m, its cost is way above gold (5.000.000) and only slightly below diamond ($1.75b at $1000/carat). So much for "diamond fever".

say what?

[jbridge21]

Titan is one of the remaining puzzles of the solar system

Are you kidding? We've hardly even begun! Mysterious things are going on with Saturn's rings between last time we flew by and this time, we've been getting a whole truckload of data from Mars which we have only barely begun to analyze, and we have no idea what's on the inside of Jupiter. Oh, and no close-up pictures of Pluto, ever.

Re:say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus: Europa-the-planet. Water beneath the ice. Lots of critters.

Re:say what?

[adeydas]

and not to mention other galaxies...

Re:say what?

[andreMA]

Yep,

...Triton looks like it has some pretty interesting and poorly understood stuff going on as well... Methane(?) geysers?

...Miranda - some of the most bizarre topology in the solar system.

<sarcasm>
Yeah, after Cassini/Huygens we may as well disband JPL and ESA, at least as far as planetary missions go...
</sarcasm>

Re:say what?

[forkazoo]

It didn't say Titan is the only remaining puzzle. The fact that we haven't solved any of the puzzles in the solar system doesn't make the statement incorrect, just a bit confused. :)

Re:say what?

[alien88]

There will be pictures sometime around 2015 of Pluto, with the New Horizons mission.

Re:say what?

[Baseclass]

With 100 billion other suns in our own galaxy perhaps we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

Re:say what?

[Wyatt Earp]

"Lots of critters."

Guesstimated critters with zero evidence of critters, let alone, lots of critters.

Re:say what?

[meringuoid]

Oh, and no close-up pictures of Pluto, ever.

Not only that, we have no complete map of Mercury. Only one spacecraft has ever visited Mercury, and it flew past photographing about two thirds of the planet's surface as it went by.

Now, Pluto's a hell of a way away, and it's not even a real planet anyway, so it's understandable that we've never been. But our neglect of Mercury is downright shameful.

Damn, shouldn't have phrased things quite like that. I'll be singing 'Blame Pluto' to myself all day now...

Re:say what?

[Wyatt Earp]

Right. But that's Earth and we're not sure how the amino acids and proteins even formed here. If they came from space, and they took on Europa then maybe there's a chance.

But theres a lot and lot and lot of ifs and unknowns about Europa to make the "there is life" comments.

FYI

[computerme]

You will be able to watch this on one of you CSPAN channels tonight.

(in the US)

I watched the last couple of Mars mission Events and it was GREAT! (ok i'm a space geek)

CSPAN, its not just for politics anymore!

Re:FYI

[jfengel]

But it's still for nerds. Different nerds, is all.

Re:FYI

[yuriwho]

Yea, I cannot find any links or info on a c-span cassini broadcast tonight. I suspect the parent comment was hoping there would be based on previous c-span coverage of other space events. Can anyone confirm? If not parent is highly overrated.

Y

Re:FYI

[Tablizer]

You will be able to watch this on one of you CSPAN channels tonight.

I can summarize what you will see. Since there will be no images of the seperation until a day or so later, at which time it would only be a distant speck, you will see a bunch of nervious nerds watching their monitors. And...

if the separation goes well:

"Yeah! We did it!"

if the separation is zarked:

"Oh shit! There goes my life's @&#* work!"

The odd thing is that once separation happens, there is only one-way communication with the probe and Huygens has no guidence rockets. In fact, it will be sleeping via timer until just before entry. There is no way to alter it's course, change parameters, or nothing. If we found out between that time that it will land in a pile of quicksand or the atmospheric models are totally off (messing up parachute timing), there is no retargeting or changing the mission plan.

It is considered primarily an atmospheric mission, and landing is more or less a bonus. But I think the coolest thing would be to land in an oil sea and see giant waves. The waves can be taller on Titan because of lower gravity. They could be giant and slow-rolling. It will be a great mission if it makes it to the surface while transmitting, but a lot can go wrong. Parachutes have been a problematic technology in the past. I hope some bone-head did not put something on backward, like they did that Utah-crashing probe. Galileo's Jupiter penetrator also had parachute problems, but luckily recovered by shear chance. And, they already found a transmitter problem in the probe. They compensated for it by changing Cassini's flight path to avoid too much Dopler shifting.

I wish they split it into two smaller probes which shared instruments between them to reduce the chance of complete loss. But, that is generally still more expensive than one bigger probe.

Good Luck, Little Probee

Re:FYI

[bani]

I wish they split it into two smaller probes which shared instruments between them to reduce the chance of complete loss.

experience has shown that this doesn't help. they either all work, or all fail. the only thing multiple probes get you is a more diverse data set, not increased reliability.

the galileo atmospheric probe parachute problem is new to me though, do you have any references?

Re:FYI

[Fweeky]

From Wikipedia's page on the subject:

"The atmospheric probe deployed its first parachute about one minute later than anticipated, resulting in a small loss of upper atmospheric readings. Through review of records, the problem was later determined to likely be faulty wiring in the parachute control system. The fact that the chute opened at all was attributed to luck."

Some interesting bits on the data recorder there too.

Re:FYI

[Tablizer]

experience has shown that this doesn't help. [twin probes] either all work, or all fail.

Which twin failures are you refering to? We have Mariner 1, Mariner 5 (or was it 3?), and Mariner 8 that failed, but the twin worked.

Re:FYI

[bani]

Oh I don't know, maybe deep space 2 perhaps?

There are other dual failures, such as Russia's Marsnik 1 and 2, Sputnik 22 and 24, Mars 2 and 3, Mars 6 and 7, Phobos 1 and 2... the list goes on.

Experience tells us you are much better off risk-wise with discrete individual missions than you are with paired simultaneously launched probes.

discuss this on irc

[yuriwho]

For those interested, folks in the channel #space on irc.freenode.net will be discussing this. Please join in!

Y

Re:discuss this on irc

[WizardRahl]

* Now talking in #space * Topic is 'Please keep the JPLers killed or injured in (DEC 8th) car accident in your thoughts and prayers. Please see http://tinyurl.com/63d7h for details. The Opportunity publications from Science magazine are available at http://homepage.mac.com/yuriwho/op1.pdf through op15.pdf' * Set by SOC-Pandelirium on Thu Dec 16 03:55:52 -ChanServ- [#space] Welcome to space. -Huygens- WizardRahl: Welcome to #space, make yourself comfortable... Type !countdown for the next Cassini-Huygens encounter. Type !recap for a recap of channel activity. Other channels of interest: #space_politics #Spaceshipone #xprize . Web sites of interest: http://foxcheck.org . This is a Family Oriented Channel. Swearing is not tolerated. who play's jean luc's character in star trek TNG? anyone know?

0.5 seconds later...

oh god i know um PATRICK STUART! thats it

Re:discuss this on irc

[WizardRahl]

* Now talking in #space
* Topic is 'Please keep the JPLers killed or injured in (DEC 8th) car accident in your thoughts and prayers. Please see http://tinyurl.com/63d7h for details. The Opportunity publications from Science magazine are available at http://homepage.mac.com/yuriwho/op1.pdf through op15.pdf&#15;'
* Set by SOC-Pandelirium on Thu Dec 16 03:55:52
-ChanServ- [#space] Welcome to space.
-Huygens- &#2;WizardRahl&#2;: Welcome to &#2;#space&#2;, make yourself comfortable... Type !countdown for the next Cassini-Huygens encounter. Type !recap for a recap of channel activity. Other channels of interest: #space_politics #Spaceshipone #xprize . Web sites of interest: http://foxcheck.org . This is a Family Oriented Channel. Swearing is not tolerated.
<WizardRahl> who play's jean luc's character in star trek TNG?
<WizardRahl> anyone know?
<DanTekGeek> oh god
<DanTekGeek> i know
<DanTekGeek> um
<DanTekGeek> PATRICK STUART!
<DanTekGeek> thats it
<DEChengst> Steward ?\
<DEChengst> tea, earl grey, hot !
<yuriwho-ha> make it so!

Re:discuss this on irc

[sw155kn1f3]

Yeah... slashdotting irc channel is what we want... expect +mi soon :)

Re:discuss this on irc

[yuriwho]

Actually, everyone has been well behaved.
But then we have a swearing kick bot and many ops to take care of trouble makers.

The discussion is good, civil and space focussed.

Y

Microphone? Hellz yeah!

[SlySpy007]

I am anxiously awaiting the Jan 13th entry into Titan's atmosphere. Apparently there are huge electrical storms on Titan, and to top it all off with gooey, sugary icing, Huygens has a fricking microphone on it. Now that is going to be sweet. The only thing that I don't particularly like about it is that my mission, Deep Impact, could have our launch pushed back a day due to DSN coverage for the descent, but what the hell, it's *so* worth it.

Slow down cowboy !

[bstadil]

Titan is one of the remaining puzzles of the solar system

Yes in the same way that most of Physics was deemed understood by the turn of the 19'th century.

Re:Slow down cowboy !

[MrNixon]

That's the great thing about Physics though - it's not only cosmology - it's also quantum physics and the others. And we were nowhere near our present understanding of physics at the turn of the last century.

Sorry, didn't check da link X-\

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC

Re:Microphone? Hellz yeah!

[tjstork]

This is the first new landing on a new planet like body since the 1970s, yeah, this little Huygens probe is a big, big deal.

Good luck on Deep Impact too. I want my kids to be able to mine asteroids.

Probing - alterior motives

[OwlWhacker]

With all of these probes, and the possibility of life on other planets - and maybe life squashed over 'millions of years' - maybe this is just one great big hunt for intergalactic oil deposits?

I'm so stoked about this

[multiplexo]

I wish that NASA would junk ISS and the Shuttle and direct more money towards probes such as this, or the Martian rovers or the new Messenger probe to Mercury or putting more probes onto the surface and into the atmosphere of Venus to add to what we learned from the Soviet Venera probes.

We learn a lot more from a single one of these probes than we do from having a couple of starving astronauts endlessly orbiting the earth in a big tin can full of their own garbage.

Re:I'm so stoked about this

[sh0rtie]

You know, people need to visit that Soviet Venera Mission you posted link to really appreciate what space exploration is, 14 probes ! they kept failing and they just built another one ,(can you imagine that today ?) those russians kept plugging away till they got a decent mission dataset (a pic + data :-) over 20 years, do we (mankind) have any long term serious goals like that?, or are we still bent on sending people (human vanity) to mars ?, is it really that important to get boots there ? would the time and effort be best spent exploring other worlds/planets in more detail first ? just think what we can do with cutting edge 2005 technology if we put our minds (and the funds) to it.

News from Titan

[mahesh_gharat]

In the realted news from Titanian reporter:
Titanians have detected the very much possibility of an earth satellite colliding with their planet and they have demanded the government funding to detect such disasters and avoid the damage in the future.

In other related news from Titanian reporter:
Titan weather department is planning the weather baloon tests on coming 14th Jan.

I don't think it works that way...

[Throtex]

Dilbert 12/19/04

More detailed information...

[andreMA]

...in this 1.3 MB PDF, which includes timelines for both the release and Titan encounter, and some pretty in-depth discussion of the science instruments on Huygens.

Colonize, Like Hell

[Winkhorst]

Titan is OURS. Your probe will be destroyed.

Regards,

The Martian Defense Forces

Re:Colonize, Like Hell

[Winkhorst]

Since the surface of our own planet went belly up and we had to move underground we have been looking for a suitable replacement sphere. Come to think of it, YOUR planet is rather nice...

Uranus has been probed!

[qwertyatwork]

Reports out of NASA confirm that scientists have recently probed the gassy inards of Uranus.

Re:Uranus has been probed!

[Tablizer]

Reports out of NASA confirm that scientists have recently probed the gassy inards of Uranus.

from the Goatse Agency of Space Systems (GASS) no doubt.

Getting there

[wronski]

A probe like Cassini is about the best that can be done with chemical propulsion technology. It took billions and decades, to get it there. To really explore the Solar System (with sample returns or manned missions) what we need is more efficient propulsion, as well as cheap access to low earth orbit. There have been some nice recent experimental crafts with ion engines, and of course there is the X-prize thing, but my impression is that the getting there part is often overlooked because of all the sexy and interesting things there are in the doing part.

Dont get me wrong, Cassini & Huygens are brilliant, I just wish we had invested more effort into making this sort of mission fundamentally easier.

Merry Christmas All!

Re:Getting there

[ArbitraryConstant]

"Dont get me wrong, Cassini & Huygens are brilliant, I just wish we had invested more effort into making this sort of mission fundamentally easier."

The Jupiter Icy Moons Oribter will have a nuclear reactor. A proper one, not one of those wimpy radiothermal jobs.

Re:Getting there

[rufferto]

"The Jupiter Icy Moons Oribter will have a nuclear reactor."

Personally, I'd much rather see these things with chemical propulsion until something else non-radioactive (solar, fusion, ?) becomes feasible. There's always a chance that something could fail, and if it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere there could be some nasty fallout.

Better safe than sorry, IMO.

Re:Getting there

[ArbitraryConstant]

"Personally, I'd much rather see these things with chemical propulsion until something else non-radioactive (solar, fusion, ?) becomes feasible. There's always a chance that something could fail, and if it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere there could be some nasty fallout."

If the launch vehicle crashed, the worst that could happen would be the release of less uranium than coal power plants already release on a regular basis. Uranium just isn't that radioactive.

The reactor would only be activated when the craft was already in orbit, and a catastrophic crash at that point is very unlikely. To crash, the engines would have to deorbit the craft, which would take a long time. I don't know how long, probably days at least.

You should also be aware that probes to the outer solar system require nuclear power anyway, just not in the form of reactors. They use highly radioactive plutonium to generate heat and electricity. A crash with that would be much more damaging because Plutonium is much more readioactive, and it's already radioactive at launch time. Unused Uranium fuel just isn't that dangerous compared to Plutonium.

Re:Getting there

[Wyatt Earp]

Well, if we wait for Fusion, we might wait 10 years, or a hundred or a thousand.

Solar arrays would have to be HUGE to provide the power we need in the outer solar system.

Nuclear is the best way to do, one can built a vessel that'll survive a rocket failure or an unexpected deorbit and uncontrolled re-entry.

There's already alot of natural radiation out there and if there was an accident with a uranium reactor, it wouldn't be that bad.

Re:Getting there

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/423414.stm It looks like Cassini is powered by nuclear, which is opposite of your argument above. Or were you trying to restrict ion engines to this type of technology http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4015227.stm Happy holidays slashdotters

Re:Getting there

[Gogo Dodo]

Cassini didn't take decades to get to Saturn. It was launched Oct. 15, 1997. It entered orbit on June 30, 2004.

Re:Getting there

[wronski]

Cassini was indeed lounched in 1997, after many years of delay. As for nuclear energy, it is indeed nuclear-powerered, but used conventional chemical propulsion to get to Saturn.

Re:When is "7:08pm PST"?

[rwise2112]

It's GMT -8 hrs

NASATV is covering it!

[Prophetic_Truth]

You can watch NASA's live stream from thier site, here

Re:NASATV is covering it!

[Prophetic_Truth]

oops! looks like its the ISS coverage right now! maybe they'll switch?

Re:NASATV is covering it!

[Buzzin877]

2 minutes to expected separation confirmation and NTV is still showing the ISS control room. If they showed JPL there would probably be some activity to see.

Re:Aliens

[shokk]

Don't be stupid, it's just precipitation.

Live update anyone?

[Tablizer]

My inlaws are hogging the TV. Anybody got any news? Thanx in advance

Re:Live update anyone?

[TimToady]

According to this press release it detached successfully.

Re:Live update anyone?

[Tablizer]

According to this press release it detached successfully.

Thanks! I appreciate it.

Re:Microphone? Hellz yeah!

[SlySpy007]

Yep. Also, let's hope that ESA has a better showing this christmas eve than they did last year (Beagle anyone?) In addition, I'm also anxious to see if the new trajectory solves the communications snafu discovered a few years back.

Thanks for the good wishes for DI. We're working our behinds off right now, but once the bird is flying we'll be in good shape.

WHO SAYS WE WON'T BE AROUND TO SEE IT?

[Agret]

See here:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid= 04/12/0 3/164257&from=rss

Lets hope it wasn't assembled by the same guy.

[crovira]

There was a solar wind collecting sattelite that had the explosive bolts on the re-entry portion put in *backwards*.

End result was a smashed saucer embedded in the desert.

Re:Lets hope it wasn't assembled by the same guy.

[Gogo Dodo]

You're referring to the Genesis mission.

The problem was not explosive bolts. The likely cause improper mounting of the gravity-switches that would have started off the parachute deployment. It hasn't been determined if the problem was that they were put in backwards by the technicians contrary to the plans or if the plans were not clear enough. The Mishap Investigation Board is still working on determining the cause and procedures to fix the problems. See their Status Report #4.

All is not lost though. Some of the samples were salvaged.

Fot the record

[Zentac]

That should be "Ga met God" Huygens was Dutch, not spanish

Re:Fot the record

[Buran]

Sadly, I only know

- some French
- only a few words of Spanish
- a few words of Russian

and the Spanish version sounded cool. ;)

I'm not even religious!

Re:Microphone? Hellz yeah!

[fienna]

could you, um, get my resume looked at where you work, Sly?

(thinks sly has the coolest job evah!)