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Huygens Probe Lands on Titan
WillDraven writes "CNN, NASA and the ESA are reporting that the Huygens space probe has entered the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan after traveling 2.2 billion miles. Pictures from the moon's surface should be available sometime this afternoon" according to the NASA TV schedule. What we know so far is that Huygens landed successfully and sent at least the carrier signal from the surface to Cassini for 90+ minutes, more than expected, and that Cassini has successfully repointed at the Earth and begun relaying the data it received, beginning with test packets. Huygens now sits on Titan, silent forever, while we wait to see whether or how much valuable data Cassini obtained and can send back. Update: 01/14 17:20 GMT by M : So far: they report zero lost packets in the transmission, but one of the two independent data-collection systems is apparently giving some problems. Update: 01/14 21:40 GMT by J : The news is pretty much all good: a very successful mission. Expect to see many photos within hours, but for now apparently only three have been released. Ice blocks or rolling stones -- let the debates begin!
I know it'll be a while, but I anxiously await the pictures and the sound (yes, they have a mic onboard). I guess it'll mostly be hissing, but it'll be interesting to HEAR a distant planet (one whom has a thick and nasty atmosphere).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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NASA really has something to learn about broadcasting. There are frequently long sections of:
* dead air;
* video with no sound, typically of big rooms with people milling about;
* sound with no picture, people talking over a picture of NASA's logo;
* video with "cocktail party" sound, where someone abandons the mike on a filing cabinet and you get to hear people walking by saying "Great weather today, Dave!"
* unscheduled time with a NASA logo and no clue when the next broadcast is.
Kind of frustrating. Of course, there's the crowd that says, "don't complain, at least we have pictures!", but I'd really like a little higher production values.
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16:20 First data received from Huygens probe
15:26 Confirmation received that Huygens probe data was successfully communicated to the Cassini spacecraft
15:00 First Huygens probe data expected at around 16:00
Probe life has now been over 5 hours
14:10 Playback of probe data begins
Ground control confirms that a signal is still being received on Earth from the Huygens probe, suggesting its batteries lasted well beyond the minimum design limit of 2 hours 15 minutes
13:47 Cassini Orbiter has been turned in its orbit to poin the high gain antenna towards Earth
12:30 Confirmation given of signal tracking for at least 2 hours
11:24 Estimated time of surface impact and end of the descent phase
11:23 Descent lamp activated to provide ground reflectivity measurements
11:12 Cassini spacecraft undergoes closest approach to Titan passing at an altitude of 60 000 km at a speed of 5.4 km per second
10:30 Green Bank 110 m telescope confirms a carrier signal from the Huygens probe.
Signal indicates that the probe has survived the entry phase and that the instrument payload is active.
It's better than it used to be. I remember watching live moon landing coverage when I was a kid. It was comprised largely of long stretches of fuzzy black-and-white blurs, static, radio beeps and barley decipherable garbled voices. All of that did give the coverage a cool alien feel, though.
Scientists are holding tight whether they good telemetry from the probe. The ESA designers forgot to correct for the doppler shift of the changing velocity between the Huygens probe and the Cassini mother ship. There is a chance that some of the signal could shift outside of the attenna frequency range and be lost. The landing was changed to slower trajectory orbit to hopefully compensate.
I could understand if they just didn't have the time to put up the pictures yet, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. NASA had some of the pictures up on their website a little while ago, and the ESA made them take the pics off.
So it seems that they don't have time to put the pictures up on their site, but somehow they do have the time to tell those who already did post the pics to take them down.
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