Titan Prepares for Invasion From Earth

[Koliedrus]

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/moons/images/PIA06172-br500.jpg

I'm reeeeealy hoping that the Huygens probe lands right in the mouth of a big, scary monster. Not that I want the mission to fail! To the contrary. I want to witness the aftermath :D

Huygens will enter the atmosphere of Titan at around 0416 EST. Click here (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm) for more.

The ESA (http://television.esa.int/default.cfm#) will be providing a live feed.

And, just for the hell of it, the ESOC Main Control Room looks like this right now:

http://www.estec.esa.int/webcam/esoc.jpg

I'da put that on the cam page but something's busted.

Details follow:
Fri, Jan 14, 2005 | 08:00 - 22:30 GMT | 09:00 - 23:30 CET
LIVE: Huygens Probe Arrival at Titan
ESA TV Live

The Huygens probe will dive into the atmosphere of Titan, on 14 January 2005.

The ESA TV Service provides an all-day live coverage, from the ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt/Germany. The programme includes live images from mission control, live comment by ESA experts in mission control and an ESOC news studio, and video tape inserts.

There will be two press briefings on the day, both televised live.

The ESA TV transmission will not be continuous during the 15-hour period but broken down into segments as follows:

08:00 – 08:30 Cassini turns to Huygens – approaching Titan 10:00 – 11:15 Huygens descends towards Titan 12:30 – 13:00 Media briefing: mission status update

13:30 – 14:15 Huygens probe on the surface?

15:00 – 15:30 Cassini returns the first data from Huygens

As of 16:15 Media briefing: mission status update

22:00 – 22:30 Review of the Day - First images and sounds from Huygens?

The detailed running order will be on line as of the evening of 11 January, as a PDF document.

A summary is online under http://television.esa.int/photos/Astra.pdf

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency and ASI, the Italian space agency.

More backgroud information can be found on: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html
For broadcasters:

Eutelsat W1 at 10 degrees East
Transponder B4, vertical, middle channel 1
F=11.0795 MHz, SR=5.632 MS/sec, FEC=3/4

For general public viewers:

ASTRA 1G at 19 degrees East, Transponder 1.108 (DVB-MPEG-2, MCPC),vertical, F=12551,5 MHz
SR=22000 MS/sec, FEC 5/6 - Service Name ESA (Astravision)

I'll probably fall asleep so let me know what I missed.

[MAC]

yup.

that should piss off the neighbors

why is it tomorrow at esoc hq?

[Koliedrus]

From: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=530


Europe Reaches New Frontier - Huygens Lands on Titan
January 14, 2005
(Source: ESA)

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/moons/IMG000991-br500.jpg
Today, after its seven-year journey through the Solar System on board the Cassini spacecraft, ESA's Huygens probe has successfully descended through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn¿s largest moon, and safely landed on its surface.

The first scientific data arrived at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, this afternoon at 17:19 CET. Huygens is mankind's first successful attempt to land a probe on another a world in the outer Solar System. "This is a great achievement for Europe and its US partners in this ambitious international endeavour to explore the Saturnian system," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's Director General.

Following its release from the Cassini mothership on 25 December, Huygens reached Titan's outer atmosphere after 20 days and a 4 million km cruise. The probe started its descent through Titan's hazy cloud layers from an altitude of about 1270 km at 11:13 CET. During the following three minutes Huygens had to decelerate from 18 000 to 1400 km per hour.

A sequence of parachutes then slowed it down to less than 300 km per hour. At a height of about 160 km the probe's scientific instruments were exposed to Titan's atmosphere. At about 120 km, the main parachute was replaced by a smaller one to complete the descent, with an expected touchdown at 13:34 CET. Preliminary data indicate that the probe landed safely, likely on a solid surface.

The probe began transmitting data to Cassini four minutes into its descent and continued to transmit data after landing at least as long as Cassini was above Titan's horizon. The certainty that Huygens was alive came already at 11:25 CET today, when the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, USA, picked up a faint but unmistakable radio signal from the probe. Radio telescopes on Earth continued to receive this signal well past the expected lifetime of Huygens.

Huygens data, relayed by Cassini, were picked up by NASA's Deep Space Network and delivered immediately to ESA's European Space Operation Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, where the scientific analysis is currently taking place.

"Titan was always the target in the Saturn system where the need for 'ground truth' from a probe was critical. It is a fascinating world and we are now eagerly awaiting the scientific results," says Professor David Southwood, Director of ESA's scientific programmme.

"The Huygens scientists are all delighted. This was worth the long wait," says Dr Jean-Pierre Lebreton, ESA Huygens Mission Manager. Huygens is expected to provide the first direct and detailed sampling of Titan's atmospheric chemistry and the first photographs of its hidden surface, and will supply a detailed 'weather report'.

One of the main reasons for sending Huygens to Titan is that its nitrogen atmosphere, rich in methane, and its surface may contain many chemicals of the kind that existed on the young Earth. Combined with the Cassini observations, Huygens will afford an unprecedented view of Saturn's mysterious moon.

"Descending through Titan was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and today's achievement proves that our partnership with ESA was an excellent one," says Alphonso Diaz, NASA Associate Administrator of Science.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency and ASI, the Italian space agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is managing the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

"The teamwork in Europe and the USA, between scientists, industry and agencies has been extraordinary and has set the foundation for today's enormous success," concludes Jean-Jacques Dordain.

NEWS RELEASE: ESA PR 03-2005

Oh well. No scary monster yet. It was a tear-jerker though. Engineers crying tears of joy in the control room... "Geek-flick". Gotta tell you, I leaked a few. I clapped and cheered even though no one could hear.

The internal temp of the probe is somewhere around 23C as opposed to the external temp of -180c. Good old German engineering. Because it's so warm inside the probe, it's operating more efficiently than expected. Instead of the predicted 2 hours of life, it cranked out data for about 7 and radio telescopes around the world scrambled to pick up the data steam as stations designated for ground based tracking saw Saturn fall below the horizon.

The Huygens is actually two redundant probes in one housing. If one set of iinstuments failed, the other increased the probability of a successful mission; Chain A and Chain B.

There are some problems with Chain A and at least one non-redundant experiment hosted on it but the data from B is dropping jaws already.

After Cassini is finished listening to Huygens' data stream, it will retransmit the stream to Earth 8 times in order to compensate for data errors.

Pictures and sounds (hopefully and looks like it).

Bravo, ESA!!!

[Koliedrus]

http://www.esa.int/images/landing01_L2.jpg

What? First no monsters and now no methane oceans in sight?!

Still... :D

I wanna see Io next. I hope the whole reincarnation thing kicks in before that happens.

[jules]

I hope they find the sirens...

[Koliedrus]

It's a sure bet that the following portion of PIA07320 will generate much speculation.

What do you see?