Huygens (spacecraft) - Detailed Huygens Activity Timeline

Detailed Huygens Activity Timeline

  • Huygens probe separated from Cassini orbiter at 02:00 UTC on December 25, 2004 in Spacecraft Event Time.
  • Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere at 10:13 UTC on January 14, 2005 in SCET, according to ESA.
  • The probe landed on the surface of the moon at about 10.2°S, 192.4°W around 12:43 UTC in SCET (2 hours 30 minutes after atmospheric entry).(1.)

There was a transit of the Earth and Moon across the Sun as seen from Saturn/Titan just hours before the landing. The Huygens probe entered the upper layer of Titan's atmosphere 2.7 hours after the end of the transit of the Earth, or only one or two minutes after the end of the transit of the Moon. However, the transit did not interfere with Cassini orbiter or Huygens probe, for two reasons. First, although they could not receive any signal from Earth because it was in front of the Sun, Earth could still listen to them. Second, Huygens did not send any readable data to the Earth; it transmitted data to the Cassini orbiter, which relayed the data received to the Earth later. For details about transits of the Earth as seen from Saturn, see also Transit of Earth from Saturn.

See also Detailed timeline of Huygens mission.

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