The Huygens probe system avionics : its design and its performance in flight

Paper number

IAC-05-A3.2.A.03

Author

Mr. patrice couzin, Thales Alenia Space, France

Coauthor

Mr. Thierry Blancquaert, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands

Year

2005

Abstract

The Huygens Probe System has descended in the atmosphere of Titan, the Saturn’s largest moon, on January the 14th 2005 before to become the first ever man made object landing on an outer solar system object, 1.5 billion km from the Sun. It has successfully completed its mission which was to provide scientific information about the composition and structure of this atmosphere. While the data returned from the science instruments is under analysis, most part of the engineering assessment of the mission has been performed. 
This paper will first present the Probe System avionics concept which has supported the numerous in-flight checkouts operations and the actual January the 14th mission, insisting on the specificity of such concept. Emphasise will especially be put on the redundancy principles, on the critical functions implementation, on the command and control principles and on key software features implementing the necessary flexibility. Then the way this avionics has been operated over the 7 years Cruise phase will be described. A number of foreseen and non foreseen activities have indeed been carried out during this time frame, especially to characterise and resolve the RF link anomaly discovered in 2000 and to have better, in flight estimates, of key mission parameters. The rationale for these activities will be addressed and also the way they have been performed.
Eventually the Probe mission performance will be detailed from an avionics perspective; the key events and operations as reconstructed from the acquired engineering telemetry will be presented. 
As a conclusion, a first post mission critical analysis of the Huygens Probe System avionics, from an architecture and from a command and control point of view, will be performed with the objective to provide “lessons learnt” type elements which could be applied to the very specific design of Entry Probe systems.

Abstract document

IAC-05-A3.2.A.03.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-05-A3.2.A.03.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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