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STORY WRITTEN FOR & USED WITH PERMISSIONPosted: January 14, 2005A huge radio telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia, was able to detectand lock onto a faint carrier signal from the Huygens Titan probe for morethan two hours this morning, confirming the spacecraft's continued descentthrough the moon's atmosphere following a high-speed entry around 5:13 a.m. EST (1013GMT).A second radio telescope now has picked up the signal as well and EuropoeanSpace Agency project scientist Jean-Pierre Lebreton said engineers were evenable to confirm at least one of the probe's six on-board instruments hadactivated as planned.Touchdown on Titan's surface was expected around 7:34 a.m.But detection of a carrier - a feat equivalent to picking up a cell phonecall from 751 million miles away - only means the spacecraft was alive andthat it survived the rigors of atmospheric entry. Confirmation that actualscience data was collected won't be available until 11:15 a.m. EST, afterNASA's Cassini spacecraft relays recorded data to Earth."We've got a long way to go," said ESA science director David Southwood."As far as i'm concerned,the baby is out of the womb, but we've yet to countthe fingers and toes, so we've still got a long way to go. But it's a majorstep, a major engineering step. You can probably detect a certain relief onmy face. That's real. But there's still a long way to go before the fullbaby is revealed."NASA science chief Al Diaz said detection of the carrier signal "meansthat probably one of the most difficult entry activities ever done has justbeen accomplished successfully."Ares 1-X PatchThe official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.Apollo CollageThis beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.Expedition 21The official embroidered patch for the International Space Station Expedition 21 crew is now available from our stores.Hubble PatchThe official embroidered patch for mission STS-125, the space shuttle's last planned service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, is available for purchase. | | | | 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.Huygens mission ends BY WILLIAM HARWOOD