The mission objectives and the main features of the Cassini/Huygens project will be described. Emphasis will be placed on Huygens, ESA's contribution to this joint NASA/ESA project. The target of Huygens is Titan, Saturn's largest satellite. The reasons for selecting Titan as a particular target will be discussed and the Huygens payload of 6 experiments described.
The launch of Cassini is scheduled for October 1997, with arrival at Saturn seven years later in 2004. The spacecraft undergoes four gravity assists in order to achieve its desired target.
Huygens' descent to the surface of Titan will last some two and a half hours. The Cassini Orbiter meanwhile has a planned lifetime of four years.
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John Zarnecki was born in 1949 in London. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences (Physics). He then spent seven years at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, working on sounding rocket and satellite payloads in the field of x-ray astronomy and achieved a PhD. He then moved to British Aerospace, Bristol where he spent three years working on the Faint Object Camera, Europe's main contribution to the Hubble Space Telescope project.
Since 1981, Dr Zarnecki has been at the University of Kent. Currently he is a Reader in Space Sciences within the Physics Department. At UKC he has worked on various missions including the post of Project Manager for the Giotto DIDSY experiment. He was elected by ESA as Principal Investigator to provide the Surface Science Package (SSP) for Huygens.
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