ARTICLE - (Updated 24/1/05)

HUYGENS: DESCENT TO TITAN
Seeing Through The Haze
As the largest moon of the Saturnian system, and the only moon in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere, Titan has intrigued scientists for many decades.

Now, a tiny spaceprobe called 'Huygens' has penetrated the orange coloured haze that shrouds the surface to reveal a new world to our eyes.

Capping an incredible year of space 'firsts', the antennas of the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) along with its sister stations in the U.S. and Spain, were the eyes and ears of the world as Titan gave up its secrets.

In the early hours of the 15th of January, 2005 the first signals relayed from Huygens through its Cassini mothercraft arrived on Earth. Two of the large antenna dishes - Deep Space Station's 43 and 45 (70- and 34-metre antennas respectively) - located at the Canberra Complex received those signals and then forward the expected wealth of scientific data and photos through NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, to the European Space Agency's mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

The signals being received took over an hour to reach Earth from Saturn, and were incredibly weak. After travelling more than 1.2 billion kms, the signal strength was equivalent to 1/20 billionth of the power used by a standard wrist watch battery.

It took the incredible sensitivity of the massive dishes, and the unique capabilities of the CDSCC through the Deep Space Network to receive these 'whispers from deep space'.

The European Space Agency's Huygens mission helped us to see through the haze. What was discovered at Titan? See the ESA Website for the results.

Celebrating 40 years of space communication operations, the CDSCC or Tidbinbilla Tracking Station as it is also known is managed by Raytheon Australia on behalf of the CSIRO and NASA.

Despite this perception such events remain rare and are eagerly awaited by astronomers and planetary scientists around the world, as well as a public still awed by views of these distant shores.

After a seven year journey to the ringed-planet Saturn, a voyage that has already been full of amazing images and discoveries, a bus-sized spacecraft called Cassini-Huygens has arrived at Saturn, and it was Australia that took the call.

On the 1st of July, the team of 144 Australians at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) aimed the giant antenna dishes of the towards the sky, listening for a tiny whisper from deep space. The signal received at the CDSCC confirmed to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) the critical moment when the main engine fired, slowing the spacecraft from its 80,000kph plunge toward Saturn, and allowing it to be drawn into a safe orbit.

Since its launch in October 1997, Cassini-Huygens - a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA - has been tracked by the antennas of the Deep Space Network (DSN). Located at Tidbinbilla just outside of Canberra; Madrid, Spain; and Goldstone, California; the DSN provides a two-way radio link between Earth-bound scientists and dozens of robotic space explorers.

Cassini will spend the next four years exploring Saturn. The planet, its system of beautiful rings, and diverse collection of moons, will be studied in minute detail by Cassini's array of cameras and scientific instruments, while the small Huygens probe will be sent on an ambitious parachute-assisted dive into the cloud-covered atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

Titan is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere. Scientists believe there could be clouds raining organic compounds onto an exotic surface. The Huygens probe is expected to relay data and nearly 1,100 images back to Earth through the DSN in early 2005.

Celebrating 40 years of space communication operations, the CDSCC or Tidbinbilla Tracking Station as it is also known is managed by Raytheon Australia on behalf of the CSIRO and NASA.