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The Planetary Report

Volume XXV, Number 2, March/April 2005

Credit: ESA / NASA / University of Arizona

On the Cover:

Top: As Huygens floated down through Titan’s atmosphere, it captured these 30 images from altitudes of 13 to 8 kilometers (9 to 5 miles). Details are visible down to about 20 meters across, and the images cover an area 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) wide.

Bottom: A mountainous coastline marks the landscape near Huygens’ landing site, as seen in this mosaic. Dark channels drain into a major river below. To terrestrial eyes, this looks like an aerial photo of a scenic lakeshore, but on Titan, water behaves like rock and hydrocarbons flow like water.

From The Editor

We are waiting. We’ve been waiting 4 years. We are impatient. But this is something truly worth waiting for.

What has us all standing around, champing at the bit, on tenterhooks, and all those other clichés, is the launch of Cosmos 1, the first solar-sail spacecraft, on its mission to orbit Earth and demonstrate the feasibility of a technology that could one day take us to the stars.

The only thing that makes the delays bearable is knowing that we are doing what is necessary to ensure the success of our mission. It’s a commonplace saying that a project can be done more quickly, less expensively, or better—but you can’t have all three at the same time. The “faster, cheaper, better” mantra of NASA, to our regret, did not prove doable. We faced precisely this situation with our solar sail.

We are operating on a fixed budget, provided by Cosmos Studios, Peter Lewis, and the members of The Planetary Society. We have allowed improvements to our spacecraft to creep in, knowing that each redundancy and upgrade increases our chances of success. The element we have let slide is schedule.

So we will not meet our published launch date. But all that stands in our way now are final tests of the assembled craft and scheduling the launch with the Russian navy, which will send Cosmos 1 into orbit with a converted submarine-launched ballistic missile. We’re within weeks of reaching our goal. Fingers crossed! Good luck to us all!

— Charlene M. Anderson

Features

Basic Solar Sailing
Solar sailing—how does it work? Society Vice President Bill Nye has a way of explaining complex principles in fun, easy-to-understand ways. Here he takes on the basics of solar sailing, explaining to readers of all ages the physics behind this novel propulsion method.

Eavesdropping on Huygens
The Huygens probe was a great success, but, as with many successful spacecraft, it was not perfect. A problem with one of the probe’s radio links meant that data from the Doppler Wind Experiment had not been returned to Earth. Thanks to the ingenuity of an international team of radio scientists, the experiment was saved. Sami Asmar, manager of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Radio Science Systems Group, tells the dramatic story.

A World Revealed: Huygens’ Images of Titan
In January, the world watched as the Huygens probe returned our first-ever views of Titan’s surface. Scientists are still examining the data, deciphering clues to Titan’s past and present. Here, we present some of the most exciting pictures.

Miranda: Shattering an Image
Uranus’ strange moon Miranda has been an object of intrigue since Voyager 2 first returned close-up images of its haggard face in 1986. Now, nearly 20 years later, planetary scientist Bob Pappalardo shines new light on the tiny moon and its fractured surface.

Annual Report to Our Members
2004 was an incredible year—with three spacecraft arriving at Mars and Cassini orbiting Saturn—and Society members were part of it all. For our members, we have put together a short report on our activities and an overview of the Society’s financial status.

Departments

Members’ Dialogue
We Make It Happen!
World Watch
Society News

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