Huygens

Also known as Huygens probe

atmospheric entry probe that landed on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005

Key facts

Mission type: Titan lander
Operator: ESA / ASI / NASA
Cospar id: 1997-061C
Website: Huygens home page
Mission duration: Overall : 7 years, 2 months, 30 days 20 days, 11 hours, 37 minutes Cassini Deployment/cruise to Titan : 20 days, 10 hours, 43 minutes Prime mission : Total : 3 hours, 24 minutes Descent : 2 hours, 30 minutes Surface : 54 minutes
Manufacturer: Thales Alenia Space (then Aérospatiale )
Bol mass: 318 kg (701 lb)
Power: 1800 Wh total
Launch date: 08:42, 15 October 1997 (UTC) ( 1997-10-15T08:42:00Z )
Rocket: Titan IV(401)B / Centaur-T B-33
Launch site: Cape Canaveral SLC-40
Contractor: Lockheed Martin
Deployed from: Cassini
Deployment date: 02:00, 25 December 2004 (UTC) ( 2004-12-25T02:00:00Z )
Disposal: Communications loss
Last contact: 13:37, 14 January 2005 (UTC) ( 2005-01-14T13:37:00Z )
Landing date: 12:43, 14 January 2005 (UTC) ( 2005-01-14T12:43:00Z )
Landing site: 10°34′23″S 192°20′06″W / 10.573°S 192.335°W / -10.573; -192.335 ( Huygens probe ) , (near the Adiri Region )

via Wikipedia infobox

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Encyclopedic overview

Contemporary ESA insignia (2000s) Horizon 2000 (Science Programme)

Huygens (/ˈhɔɪɡənz/ HOY-gənz) was an atmospheric entry robotic space probe that landed successfully on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. Built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), and launched by NASA, it was part of the Cassini–Huygens mission and became the first spacecraft to land on Titan and the farthest landing from Earth a spacecraft has ever made. The probe was named after the 17th-century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan in 1655.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Huygens” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.