HUYGENS Lands on Titan

On the 14th January, 2005, after its seven-year journey through the Solar System on board the Cassini spacecraft, ESA’s Huygens probe successfully descended through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and safely landed on its surface.

Images courtesy of ESA

Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA mission. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will orbit Saturn for four years, making an extensive survey of the ringed planet and its moons. The ESA Huygens probe is the first to land on a world in the outer Solar System - on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Data from Cassini and Huygens may offer clues about how life began on Earth.

Titan is one of the most mysterious objects in our Solar System. It is the second largest moon and the only one with a thick, methane-rich, nitrogen atmosphere. Experts think that its atmosphere resembles that of a very young Earth.

CAPTEC was responsible for the Independent Software Verification and Validation of the on-board software for the Huygens lander.

The company was selected in competitive bidding for this project and has established a successful track record in developing high reliability on-board software for the ESA satellite programme. Notable space satellite missions operating with CAPTEC software or CAPTEC validated software include: Hipparcos, ISO, SOHO, XMM-Newton, Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta Herschel/Planck and the Huygens Probe

A spin-off from the technology and process in these projects is the high performance and reliability of the CAPTEC Imaging products for Lossless Compression and Medical Applications.

©2005 CAPTEC
Computer Applied Techniques Ltd