The Huygens probe was engineered to fulfill all objectives regarding Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The probe was made to withstand landing and collect as much information as possible. The design enabled the probe to brake while descending into Titan’s atmosphere followed by parachuting the remaining spacecraft equipped with instruments to the moon’s surface. Engineers were uncertain where the landing site would be and enabled the probe with different features making it capable of landing on rugged terrain, flat terrain, and in water. The probe separated from the orbiter on December 25, 2004 and landed on Titan on January 14, 2005. Up until this point, the probe remained essentially dormant besides semiannual system checks that were pre-programmed. The probe’s radio link was activated early on its 2.5 hour descent sending outgoing messages back to the orbiter that were also detected from Earth. Using Doppler data,
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On October 15, 1997 the Cassini-Huygens was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida using a U.S. Air Force Titan IVB/Centaur rocket. The complete launcher was made of a two-stage Titan IV booster rocket, two strap-on solid rocket motors, the Centaur upper stage, and a payload enclosure. The entire launcher stood 55.8 meters high and has a total weight, vehicle and payload, of 1,038,000 kilograms. The rocket lifted perfectly as scheduled at 4:43 a.m. EDT. After two minutes and 23 seconds the launch sequence continued with the separation of the Titan launch vehicle at an altitude of 91,440 meters and traveling at 7,046 kilometers per hour. The Centaur upper stage separated at 42 minutes and 40 seconds. 10 minutes after the separation, the Cassini-Huygens successfully opened its communications link with NASA’s Deep Space Network near Canberra, Australia while flying on its own for the first time (Matson et al,
On October 15, 1997 the Cassini-Huygens was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida using a U.S. Air Force Titan IVB/Centaur rocket. The complete launcher was made of a two-stage Titan IV booster rocket, two strap-on solid rocket motors, the Centaur upper stage, and a payload enclosure. The entire launcher stood 55.8 meters high and has a total weight, vehicle and payload, of 1,038,000 kilograms. The rocket lifted perfectly as scheduled at 4:43 a.m. EDT. After two minutes and 23 seconds the launch sequence continued with the separation of the Titan launch vehicle at an altitude of 91,440 meters and traveling at 7,046 kilometers per hour. The Centaur upper stage separated at 42 minutes and 40 seconds. 10 minutes after the separation, the Cassini-Huygens successfully opened its communications link with NASA’s Deep Space Network near Canberra, Australia while flying on its own for the first time (Matson et al,