ESA Huygens Status: Successful Probe Targeting Manoeuvre

The Probe Targeting Manoeuvre (PTM) was successfully executed by the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft during the night of Friday 17 December 2004. The burn start time was 02:30:11 UTC (Earth Received Time). The predicted burn duration was 85.1 seconds, for a total delta-V of 11.937 ms -1 . A look at the telemetry immediately after the manoeuvre showed the burn duration was 84.9 seconds long, giving a delta-V of 11.9 ms -1 .

This was a main engine burn designed to put Cassini-Huygens on an impact trajectory with Titan. The manoeuvre design for PTM included the expected separation delta-V in order to achieve the proper entry conditions at the reference interface altitude of 1270 kilometres above the surface of Titan.

An additional manoeuvre is planned on Thursday, 23 December 2004, to fine tune the Huygens trajectory after separation.