Huygens (spacecraft)

Huygens was a robotic atmospheric entry probe that carried a set of instruments down to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan on 14 January 2005, the first landing on Titan and still the only one in the outer Solar System. It was built and operated by the European Space Agency and travelled to Saturn attached to the Cassini orbiter, launched in October 1997, from which it separated on 25 December 2004. The probe itself weighed 318 kg and continued to send data for about 90 minutes after touchdown. Its prime contractor was Aérospatiale, working at its Cannes Mandelieu Space Center in France, with the heat shield built by the company near Bordeaux. The probe is named for the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan in 1655.