The Huygens probe is designed to have power for 153 minutes. They expect a maximum decent time of 2 1/2 hours. This would leave 3 minutes on the surface. If it decends faster or the batteries last longer the Cassini probe has a 3 hour window to collect the data. The data will be sent back to Earth after that. Ken -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Hards Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:28 AM To: Utah-Astro Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Huygens probe I've read variously that the Huygens probe was designed to send data from the surface of Titan for only one to three minutes. Can this be true? Patrick, can you shed some light on this? I'd think that at least an hour would be required to make sure good data is recovered. TIA, C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy