Huygens: Almost Flawless Titan Mission

The European Space Agency's Huygens Probe has successfully sent back the first image ever from the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, according to the ESA's Web site for the mission. The first picture with clear detail, which arrived at 1845 UTC (2:45pm ET), showed what appeared to be drainage channels on Titan as the probe descended towards the surface.

Huygens successfully landed on the surface of Titan around 1145 UTC (7:45am ET) this morning, which was confirmed by radio telescopes on Earth about an hour later.

Mission control in Darmstadt, Germany began receiving the initial data about four hours later at 1519 UTC (11:19am ET). As part of the probe's design, Huygens was to deliver all of its data to the NASA-built Cassini probe, which would in turn transmit the data back to Earth.

"We have it? We have it!" one team member exclaimed before Mission Control erupted into applause and cheers as the first bits of data began to trickle in. Confirmation was provided to the media at 1535 UTC (11:35am ET).

At a press conference shortly following the receipt of the first data from the probe, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacque Dordain said that Huygens worked "beautifully" and the mission had exceeded their expectations. "The morning was good, the afternoon is better," Dordain said. "We have a scientific success."

NASA official Alphonso Diaz became emotional while congratulating and thanking his European colleagues for the successful mission. "There will only be one first successful landing on Titan, and this was it," Diaz added.

According to officials, the probe was working even better than expected. Although the probe had been expected to last only 30 minutes in the harsh climate of Titan, Huygens transmitted data for two hours following touchdown. In fact, a radio telescope in Australia could still detect the probe itself at 1555 UTC (11:55am ET), almost three hours after Huygens was expected to fail.

Cassini was no longer listening to Huygens as it had turned away from the probe, but researchers were trying to see if they could get anything from the data the radio telescopes were receiving.

The mission was not without some problems, however. Huygens was built with two data channels, but the "A" channel failed shortly after landing. Officials at the press conference reassured reporters that "the probe is a fully redundant system" and it was actually "two probes in one."

Huygens was using channel "B" for all data transfer and officials added that transmission was without the loss of a single packet, meaning no data had been lost at all.