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Huygens Probe Prepares for Saturn Moon Landing

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the setting-down dept.

Nathan writes "A probe is about to land on one of Saturn's 35 moons, Titan. The probe is a collaboration with NASA, the European Space Agency and Italy's space program. The probe is apparently about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. This landing should lead scientists toward new information about the atmosphere and the magnetosphere."

7 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Timeline and (better) coverage... by John+Miles · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... at SpaceFlight Now

    It'd be worth staying up for, but the last time I did that, I jinxed the Mars Polar Lander. :(

    If the Huygens timeline executes as planned, it will rank among the coolest engineering achievements in history. It will also have happened thanks to one guy who kept his eye on the ball when nobody else was paying attention.

    --
    Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
    1. Re:Timeline and (better) coverage... by wallitron · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nice save.

      "In short: Cassini is at Saturn, and about to launch the Huygens probe into Titan's atmosphere (splashdown 14th January 2005). The communication link between Huygens and Cassini was not thoroughly tested before launch. Some thoughtful engineer realised this might be a problem, and after some pushing against resistance, managed to test Cassini's response to how they expect the signal from Huygens to look. Surprise suprise, Houston we have a problem. Turns out, the original engineers took account of doppler shift in the carrier wave, but not in the encoded data. D'oh! Problem is encoded in firmware, can't be fixed after launch. Double d'oh! So instead, they've altered Cassini's trajectory to eliminate the doppler shift. Hurrah for Boris Smeds!"

      http://gimbo.org.uk/archives/2005/01/boris_smeds_v s.html

  2. Here is a Countdown by mowler2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the official ESA countdown! At the moment, it's only 4 hours left! :) However, after landing, it will take another 5 hours before the data starts coming in, and we know wether it was a success or a failure.

    In the application, you can also fastforward and see what Cassini does in the coming years.

  3. For those interested in discussing this on irc by yuriwho · · Score: 4, Informative

    please join our irc channel #space on irc.freenode.net

    This channel is devoted to discussion of space science, current, past and future space missions.

    This channel is frequented by a lot of knowledgeable folk. And please keep the discussion on topic ;-)

    Y

    --
    no sig.
  4. Not NASA. by i41Overlord · · Score: 4, Informative

    The probe was built by the ESA, not NASA. Cassini is NASA, Huygens probe is ESA.

    And NASA's Mars rovers are still going strong, whereas the ESA's Beagle is just a crater.

  5. But Not ESA Either by Z+Chameleon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Beagle 2 was not an ESA probe but rather a British project which piggybacked on ESA's Mars Express orbiter (which is going strong by the way).

  6. www.esa.int by dolmen.fr · · Score: 5, Informative

    I won't blame anyone who hasn't RTFA for this news, because here is the really interesting link: the ESA (European Space Agency) portal.
    A 346 words article from India Daily is not the most relevant for an ESA project.

    I hope /. moderators would care a bit more when posting news. Recently the interesting links were often missing. A link to a press agency article may be interesting to some, but we have other sources for that. I expect a bit more from a /. news: the poster should at list post links to official sites with deeper information.