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Alcatel-built HUYGENS probe on final approach to Titan

16 December 2004

The HUYGENS probe is scheduled to separate from the CASSINI spacecraft on December 25 - Merry Christmas, Solar System!

CASSINI-HUYGENS is the first European program designed to explore the outer solar system, home to the giant planets. Alcatel Space was prime contractor for the HUYGENS planetary probe, and the first European company to meet the technological challenge of building a vehicle capable of facing up to such draconian conditions. It led a consortium of 40 companies and laboratories in both Europe and the United States to carry out this mission.

CASSINI-HUYGENS is a joint mission of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian Space Agency. Launched by a Titan IV Centaur in October 1997, the HUYGENS probe was carried on the CASSINI spacecraft built in the United States.

After a daunting interplanetary voyage lasting seven years, taking advantage of gravitational boosts by Venus (twice), the Earth and Jupiter, CASSINI-HUYGENS has arrived near its destination of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. It was successfully injected into orbit around Saturn last July, and HUYGENS is scheduled to separate from the CASSINI spacecraft on December 25. This is the penultimate stage before its atmospheric entry and descent on January 14, 2005, towards this still largely unknown Saturn moon

When this ambitious program kicked off in the 1980s, it was the first time that Europe was involved in an interplanetary mission requiring the entry into the atmosphere of another planet. It will also be the first time that a man-made object alights on the moon of planet so far away in our solar system.

Scientists are keenly interested in Titan because its characteristics are thought to be very similar to those of primitive Earth, in terms of temperature, ground pressure, and the presence of methane and nitrogen in the atmosphere. Once combined, these two gaseous elements can form complex molecules, which are the building blocks of living cells. This environment is similar to that on the Earth about 3.8 billion years ago, when life first appeared, in the so-called "primordial soup". In other words, Titan is the only living laboratory of its kind in our solar system.

With HUYGENS, built by Alcatel Space as prime contractor, the company re-affirms its commitment alongside European scientists and agencies to successfully completing the most challenging space exploration and observation programs. The CASSINI-HUYGENS mission follows the exemplary success of the ISO (Infrared Space Observatory) satellite, with its exceptional harvest of data for astronomers around the world, while awaiting data from the Herschel and Planck programs now under way.