Titan-Bound Huygens Probe Detaches From Cassini

[IndianaGreen]

For those of us that have been getting e-mail updates about this mission since it began 7 years ago, this is the moment we have been waiting for. Next stop Titan!

Titan-Bound Huygens Probe Detaches From Cassini
December 24, 2004
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

The European Space Agency's Huygens probe successfully detached from NASA's Cassini orbiter today to begin a three-week journey to Saturn¿s moon Titan. NASA's Deep Space Network tracking stations in Madrid, Spain and Goldstone, Calif., received the signal at 7:24 p.m. (PST). All systems performed as expected and there were no problems reported with the Cassini spacecraft.

The Huygens probe, built and managed by the European Space Agency, was bolted to Cassini and has been riding along during the nearly seven-year journey to Saturn largely in a "sleep" mode. Huygens will be the first human-made object to explore on-site the unique environment of Titan, whose chemistry is assumed to be very similar to that of early Earth before life formed.

Huygens will tell us whether this assumption is correct.

"We wish to congratulate our European partners as their journey begins and wish them well on their descent to Titan," said Robert T. Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We are very excited to see the probe off and to have accomplished this part of our job. Now were ready to finish our part, receiving and relaying the Huygens data back to Earth."

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=519

The ESA Cassini-Huygens website is here:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html