A Martin Baker parachute system, packed inside a small spacecraft six years ago, still has another 17 months to go before it springs into action.
The craft is the European Space Agency's (ESA) Huygens lander, which will become the first spacecraft to land on a moon of any planet except the Earth when it arrives on Saturn's moon Titan next year.
It is riding piggyback on a larger US mother ship called Cassini, launched in 1997, which will become the first craft to orbit the ringed planet. Cassini will start orbiting Saturn in July 2004 and will deploy the Hugyens lander - named after the astronomer who discovered Titan - in November 2004.
Huygens will enter Titan's atmosphere at a speed of 6.15km per sec, protected by a large heatshield. At 170km, a mortar will deploy a 2.6m pilot chute, which will pull off the aft cover, allowing deployment of the 8.3m diameter main chute.
The heatshield will be jettisoned and Huygens will make a 15min descent on a 3m diameter stabiliser chute. Batteries on the craft will allow transmission from its instruments for about 3 hours, providing data on temperature, pressure, atmosphere, winds and the state of the surface.
Titan is the largest satellite of Saturn. Its opaque orange nitrogen atmosphere, overlaid by a blue haze of methane, is thought to contain hydrocarbons such as hydrogen cyanide. The surface of Titan might consist of liquid ethane pools and lakes of ethane rain.
A Martin Baker parachute system is also aboard the UK's Beagle 2 lander, heading for Mars and also riding piggyback with another ESA craft, Mars Express.
Source: Flight Daily News
