Launched in 1997 aboard titan IV centaur and entered orbit around saturn after an interplanetary voyage that included flyby’s of Venus Earth and Jupiter. On December 25, 2004, Huygens separated from the orbiter, and it landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005 and it successfully returned data to Earth, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first
landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System .It was a joint venture between NASA,ESA and Italian space agency. The orbiter was built by NASA and the lander was by ESA.
[ATTACH=full]125090[/ATTACH]Cassini spacecraft carrying the Huygens (The lage disk on the left side)
Here are some of the images from the spacecraft.
[ATTACH=full]125092[/ATTACH]Saturn poses with its largest moon Titan
[ATTACH=full]125093[/ATTACH]Enceladus
[ATTACH=full]125095[/ATTACH] Geysers from the south pole of enceladus.
[ATTACH=full]125097[/ATTACH]Titans surface . The image was taken by Huygens lander.[ATTACH=full]125099[/ATTACH] Earth as seen from saturn.
[ATTACH=full]125108[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]125109[/ATTACH]
Its prime mission was 4 years but it was extended twice . The mission will end on 15 september as it will dive into Saturn atmosphere and burn up.
There are two others which went past pluto and were still transmitting. Mission HQ wakaamua kuzuacha ziendelee ad infinitum
Those are the twin voyagers launched in the 60’s and which are leaving the solar system headed into far outer space in opposite directions.
how do they send commands to the spacecraft millions of miles away in outer space?
If saturn was our moon
[ATTACH=full]125142[/ATTACH]
A dedicated frequency X-band is used at 8.4-8.5GHz, which is set aside globally for deep space communications to avoid interference from terrestrial sources because the signals coming back to Earth are so weak FM radio is about 88 to 108 MHz. The Deep Space Network consists of a network of huge satellite dishes spread across three continents 120 degrees in longitude apart to give wide coverage of the skies, so before a spacecraft is lost by one antenna, another one can pick it up.[SIZE=1]courtesy of PC world[/SIZE]
Actually, they were launched in 1977. Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 were the ones launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively