2005 in Science - Space Exploration

Space Exploration

• January 14 – The Huygens probe is successfully sent into the atmosphere of Titan and returns science data to Earth via the Cassini orbiter. It survives the landing on the surface of Titan and sends pictures and other data for more than an hour afterwards.
• January 26 – ESA's SMART-1 begins sending back close range pictures of the lunar surface
• February 7 – NASA announce budget plans – in the announcement, they state that a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope will not take place, and that a robotic mission to deorbit the telescope with a safe descent into an ocean will take place. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (Jimo) mission is also cancelled.
• February 12 – ESA successfully launch an Ariane 5 ECA carrying three satellites. The previous attempt to launch the new design of rocket, in December 2002, failed when the rocket deviated from its course minutes into the flight.
• July 4 – The Deep Impact spacecraft successfully observes the disintegration of its "impactor" section colliding with the comet Tempel 1. A large number of other telescopes also provide data on this event.