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Cassini's Huygens Probe Rendezvous with Titan

Posted by michael on from the bomb's-away dept.

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.'"

24 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. BBC News by KrackerJax · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    Sauer
  2. say what? by jbridge21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    2. Re:say what? by meringuoid · · Score: 2, Insightful
      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...

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  3. FYI by computerme · · Score: 2, Informative

    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!

    1. Re:FYI by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:FYI by bani · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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?

  4. discuss this on irc by yuriwho · · Score: 2, Informative

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

    Y

    --
    no sig.
    1. Re:discuss this on irc by WizardRahl · · Score: 5, Funny

      * 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.
      <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!

  5. Microphone? Hellz yeah! by SlySpy007 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  6. Slow down cowboy ! by bstadil · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    Help fight continental drift.
    1. Re:Slow down cowboy ! by MrNixon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  7. Sorry, didn't check da link X-\ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    BBC

  8. I'm so stoked about this by multiplexo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --
    cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
    1. Re:I'm so stoked about this by sh0rtie · · Score: 3, Insightful


      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.

  9. News from Titan by mahesh_gharat · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

  10. More detailed information... by andreMA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...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.

  11. Getting there by wronski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Getting there by ArbitraryConstant · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "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.

      --
      I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
    2. Re:Getting there by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  12. Re:When is "7:08pm PST"? by rwise2112 · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's GMT -8 hrs

    --

    "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
  13. Re:Let's hope all goes well! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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".

  14. Re:Lets hope it wasn't assembled by the same guy. by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 2, Informative
    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.

  15. Re:I never learned to read by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!