Getting Ready To Drop Huygens Probe On Titan

The Cassini spacecraft completed a successful rendezvous with Saturn's moon Titan on Monday. This was the last pass before the European Space Agency's Huygens probe is sprung loose from Cassini on Christmas Eve (in US time zones). Information gathered during this flyby will provide an opportunity to compare images from Cassini's first close Titan encounter which occurred on Oct. 26.

NASA's Deep Space Network tracking station in Madrid, Spain, acquired a signal at about 1900 Eastern Standard Time Monday. As anticipated, the spacecraft came within 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) of Titan's surface.

As with the last flyby, a major goal of this flyby was to measure the thickness of Titan's atmosphere. The information gathered will help determine whether Cassini can safely get closer to Titan on subsequent flybys, and will also be used to verify that Huygens atmosphere models are correct.

Titan is a prime target of the Cassini-Huygens mission because it is the only moon in our solar system with a thick smoggy atmosphere. The Huygens probe, built and operated by the European Space Agency, is attached to Cassini. After its Christmas Eve release, it will descend through Titan's atmosphere on Jan. 14, 2005, as it collects atmospheric data down to the surface.

FMI: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov, www.nasa.gov/cassini