Titan Surface Probe: Cassini Flyby & Huygens Descent

[marcus]

here is an article posted yesterday (Friday)
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=96361

what other articles do you have about this?

a flyby of Titan by the Cassini craft
releasing a small probe, Huygens,
intended to parachute to surface (possibly liquid)

Cassini will come within 1200 km of Titan
Huygens will be released during the flyby and will
take several weeks to approach the moon

Huygens descent thru Titan atmosphere is scheduled
to occur in late December, around christmas

the article points out that this is the first attempt to
land a probe on any moon besides earth's.
No probe has been landed on a Mars moon or on a Jovian moon.

have there been recent threads about Cassini, and in particular
about the Huygens probe? Anyone have links to other
current articles?

 

[ryokan]

Anyone have links to other current articles?

Here is a link to Nasa's Cassini-Huygens misision.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html
One or two months ago I had downloaded an interesting report from this web, but now I don't find it here. PF doesn't allow to attach this pdf archive because of its size.

And from ESA...
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=35888

Other links in Sci.Am.: http://www.sciam.com/search/index.cfm?QT=Q&SC=Q&Q=cassini&x=0&y=0

And in the Max Planck
http://www.mpg.de/bilderBerichteDok...emitteilungen/2004/pressemitteilung200406031/

 

[BrianJ.]

I found this quite helpful...

http://www.rssd.esa.int/SB-general/Projects/Huygens/Mission/Huygens.html

I believe Huygens' arrival at Titan will now be mid-January 2005 due to rescheduling of the mission. The reason for rescheduling is quite interesting in itself, I'll try to find links...

Cheers.

EDIT: this page gives a rough outline why it had to be rescheduled...
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/cassini_change_010620.html

 

[Janitor]

It is a relief to read that Cassini will store Huygens' data on a 'solid-state recorder.' I remember the problems the Galileo probe had with the tape recorder it used to store digital data.

 

[Phobos]

Here's where I go to check on the status on the mission...
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

My own small contribution at Physics Post back in April...
http://www.physicspost.com/science-article-196.html

 

[Phobos]

Successful flyby of Titan yesterday (closest ever)! Here's the CNN article...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/27/cassini.titan.ap/index.html

So far, they were unable to determine whether hydrocarbon oceans/lakes are present.

Looking forward to Huygens!