Caltech researchers laid bets on where (or whether) Huygens would land. “I think we probably should count ‘tar’ as the winner,” says Professor Mike Brown. Sounds good—the ESA website proclaims, “Huygens lands in Titanian mud.”

NASA salutes Huygens probe

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe offered congratulations to the European Space Agency (ESA) on the successful January 14 touchdown of its Huygens probe on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan—1.2 billion kilometers (744 million miles) from Earth and the farthest point in the solar system where a spacecraft has landed.

“The descent through Titan’s atmosphere and down to its surface appeared to be perfect,” O’Keefe said. “We congratulate ESA for their spectacular success. We’re very proud of the Cassini-Huygens teams that helped to make this both an engineering and scientific victory, and we appreciate the dedication and support from our international partners.”

Cassini-Huygens is a joint mission of NASA, ESA, and the Italian Space Agency (ISA). JPL, a division of Caltech, designed and built the Cassini orbiter and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. ESA built and managed the development of Huygens and oversees the probe operations. ISA provided the high-gain antenna and contributed much to the radio system and to several of Cassini’s science instruments.

Huygens was carried to Saturn’s orbit aboard Cassini and sent on its way to Titan on December 24. The probe entered Titan’s upper atmosphere at about 5:15 a.m. EST on January 14. During its two-and-one-half-hour descent to the moon’s surface, it sampled the chemical composition of the atmosphere. After touching down, the probe continued transmitting data for more than 90 minutes. The data were sent to Cassini and relayed through NASA’s Deep Space Network to JPL and to ESA’s Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.

JPL Director Charles Elachi said, “We congratulate our colleagues at ESA on the splendid performance of the Huygens probe and look forward to the science results of this effort. This has been a great example of international collaboration to explore our solar system.”

“Our ESA colleagues have every reason to be very proud of the excellent manner in which the Huygens probe performed,” said Robert T. Mitchell, Cassini program manager at JPL. “We are also proud of our support for this endeavor.”

Cassini continues to orbit Saturn on a four-year mission to study the planet and its rings, moons, and magnetosphere. More information about the Cassini-Huygens mission is available at www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
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