0:00:13 > 0:00:18January 14, 2005, the day had finally arrived -
0:00:18 > 0:00:22the day that I'd thought about every day for 17 years.
0:00:26 > 0:00:321.5 billion miles away, out there near Saturn, there was something
0:00:32 > 0:00:38that we'd built and it was hurtling through space at 20,000 mph.
0:00:38 > 0:00:45Would it do just what we'd designed it to do or would it all be wasted?
0:00:58 > 0:01:01We went into the science room that morning
0:01:01 > 0:01:02knowing that whatever was going to happen
0:01:02 > 0:01:04was going to happen, and this was the day.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08There was an enormous air of expectation.
0:01:08 > 0:01:09Basically anyone I met
0:01:09 > 0:01:13was as excited but also as nervous as I was about the whole mission.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16Frankly I think we were all petrified.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25But the very worst thing that shouldn't have happened happened.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27And it turned out it was a major problem.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30I just wanted to go away and cry in a corner.
0:01:30 > 0:01:37That really ramped up the nerves and there's a missing command, what else is wrong?
0:01:37 > 0:01:43I really had visions now of the last 17 years having been wasted.
0:01:53 > 0:01:57# MUSIC: "Red Planet Rock" by Don Lang & His Frantic Five
0:01:57 > 0:01:59# Everybody, watch the sky
0:01:59 > 0:02:01# The weather's all jumping and I'll tell you why... #
0:02:01 > 0:02:07Growing up in the late 50s, all I knew about space travel was
0:02:07 > 0:02:09probably from reading about Dan Dare,
0:02:09 > 0:02:13for example, in the Eagle comic.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17I knew very little about the planets, probably from schoolbooks.
0:02:17 > 0:02:25All we knew was from often rather blurry, indistinct images from telescopes on the ground.
0:02:25 > 0:02:30I think I knew that Saturn was a large ball of gas.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35We call it a gas giant, and it was about 1 billion miles away from us
0:02:35 > 0:02:39here on the Earth, but I certainly didn't know anything about Titan.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43I didn't know that it was one of Saturn's moons orbiting around it.
0:02:43 > 0:02:49I mean you have to remember we didn't have any spacecraft images of course,
0:02:49 > 0:02:52and then something happened to change all of that.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59- NEWSREADER:- 'Half an hour ago, the Russians announced
0:02:59 > 0:03:01'that they had put the first man into space.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03'It's the voice in space of Major Yuri Gagarin.'
0:03:03 > 0:03:06'It must be one of the greatest scientific
0:03:06 > 0:03:08'events for one of the greatest occasions in the history of man.'
0:03:08 > 0:03:12It was absolutely mind-boggling.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14It's impossible now really to
0:03:14 > 0:03:18imagine the impact that it made.
0:03:18 > 0:03:19Man in space.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23- Excuse me, what do you think of the news?- I think it's fantastic.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27- Well, I can tell you he's now back, safe and sound.- Really?
0:03:27 > 0:03:29I didn't think he would get back.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32Well, I say, very best of British good luck to the chap myself.
0:03:32 > 0:03:37Within months of Gagarin's flight, he embarked on a world tour
0:03:37 > 0:03:42and I think it's true that the first port of call was the United Kingdom and London.
0:03:44 > 0:03:49Major Gagarin, could you tell us what you think of the reception of the British public?
0:03:49 > 0:03:51TRANSLATOR SPEAKS RUSSIAN
0:03:51 > 0:03:54GAGARIN SPEAKS RUSSIAN
0:03:58 > 0:04:02The welcome I have been given by the British public has been overwhelming.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04It has been most friendly and kind.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09TRANSLATOR CONTINUES: 'I see smiling faces everywhere...'
0:04:11 > 0:04:13What about you, would you like to be a spaceman?
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Oh, well, it all depends.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20If it comes up, like everybody in a kind of craze,
0:04:20 > 0:04:22I think I might have a go.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25- You might have a go, might you?- Yes. - What did you think of the Major?
0:04:25 > 0:04:30I liked his uniform and I like the company all around us.
0:04:31 > 0:04:36The school that I was at, Highgate, was very close to Highgate Cemetery.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41Of course, every visiting Russian dignitary had to visit the tomb of Karl Marx.
0:04:41 > 0:04:46I remember school was cancelled for the afternoon.
0:04:46 > 0:04:52It was such a big event, you know, Gagarin coming to London, coming to Highgate.
0:04:52 > 0:04:58I think I only decided to come along here at the last minute.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03I'm not sure why. I don't know if I'm a believer in fate but it must have been fate, mustn't it?
0:05:03 > 0:05:08And it was my eureka moment - seeing that man standing here -
0:05:08 > 0:05:15asmall man, but the thought he had been in space for what was it, 96 minutes?
0:05:15 > 0:05:19The first astronaut, and I was hooked from that moment on.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39The Gagarin flight was really what kickstarted it all.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43It really took us out of that science fiction era
0:05:43 > 0:05:45into the era of practicality,
0:05:45 > 0:05:49and one can see it as the first step on our exploration
0:05:49 > 0:05:55of the solar system with humans and also with robotic spacecraft.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04It's one of those things, if you grew up in the late 60s, early 70s,
0:06:04 > 0:06:06you know, space was everywhere.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09It was the most exciting thing, you just wanted to be involved in it,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12probably couldn't even imagine that you would be.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14There was a little bit of affluence
0:06:14 > 0:06:18and some of the social boundaries and barriers were breaking down.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21There was the so-called Youth Revolution and I was caught up
0:06:21 > 0:06:27in many of the demonstrations that were going on against the Vietnam War.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31It was a fascinating time.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34- NEIL ARMSTRONG: - That's one small step for man,
0:06:37 > 0:06:39one giant leap for mankind.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45I was always interested in space.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49I was interested in unmanned space exploration,
0:06:49 > 0:06:52seeing other planets up close.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57All of this helped us cement, I think, this hope,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01this dream that I had that I could actually take this further.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03I could get my physics degree.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06I could then perhaps do a PhD,
0:07:06 > 0:07:12and really move to be a part of this whole worldwide space activity.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15I stir it up with my feet.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19There it is, I can see it from here. It's orange.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31- AMERICAN NEWSREEL:- Only once every 175 years are the major planets -
0:07:31 > 0:07:34Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune -
0:07:34 > 0:07:40so aligned that a spacecraft can visit all four on a single flight.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44The rare opportunity to probe these planets occurs in this decade,
0:07:44 > 0:07:50the 1970s, and will not recur until the middle of the 22nd century.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23Most of what we knew about Titan, at least at this time,
0:08:23 > 0:08:26was from the Voyager spacecraft.
0:08:26 > 0:08:32We knew that Titan was about 5,000 km in diameter, so bigger than the planet Mercury.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34It had a thick atmosphere.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36This is what really made it stand out
0:08:36 > 0:08:39amongst all of the planetary satellites in the solar system.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41It's the only one that does.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45But we knew essentially nothing about the surface
0:08:45 > 0:08:50because Titan is permanently shrouded in orange haze or smog,
0:08:50 > 0:08:56which meant that none of the images showed anything of the surface.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58We know it's very cold.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01Saturn and its satellites are so far from the sun.
0:09:01 > 0:09:02The atmosphere is very complex,
0:09:02 > 0:09:06it was known to have at least 12 different gases and probably having
0:09:06 > 0:09:10some similarity to Earth's very primitive atmosphere,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13one that we lost probably billions of years ago.
0:09:13 > 0:09:18There was organic chemistry on Titan which was interesting but that Titan wasn't warm enough
0:09:18 > 0:09:24to have a liquid water which of course is one of the prerequisites for life as we know it.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27And I think Titan sort of faded into the background in a sense
0:09:27 > 0:09:30for much of the following decade.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40Well, towards the end of the 1970s,
0:09:40 > 0:09:45jobs in British universities were very difficult to come by
0:09:45 > 0:09:47and I saw an advertisement,
0:09:47 > 0:09:52which was very hard to resist, to go and work on a project called Giotto.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57Now Giotto was Europe's Halley's Comet mission and the job was at the
0:09:57 > 0:10:02University of Kent to be project manager for the dust instrument.
0:10:02 > 0:10:08I applied and I got it so, at the end of 1981, we moved to Canterbury
0:10:08 > 0:10:15on a two-year contract and I ended up staying there 18 years.
0:10:27 > 0:10:33Giotto flew 594 km from the nucleus of Halley's Comet.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35I mean, it was remarkably close.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39And we detected about 30,000 dust particles.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43These are the particles that make up the tail of a comet.
0:10:43 > 0:10:50I think it was a mission that gave Europe confidence that it could really do ambitious things in space.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57After the success of Giotto, the European Space Agency
0:10:57 > 0:11:01were very democratic about selecting the next scientific mission.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04They had five candidate missions
0:11:04 > 0:11:09and we got involved in a team on a mission called Vesta.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13Now Vesta was going to fly past an asteroid
0:11:13 > 0:11:19and we were part of the group that was looking at the possibility of firing some penetrators.
0:11:19 > 0:11:25They would be fired into the surface of the asteroid and make measurements of the physical properties,
0:11:25 > 0:11:32and we came to the day of selection and, to our horror, it wasn't Vesta that they chose.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37They selected a mission called Cassini, going to a place called Titan -
0:11:37 > 0:11:43a place that I'd hardly heard of and we were completely deflated and ejected by this.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49I remember still the journey back to Canterbury from Bruges.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54We went on the train and the ferry, and it was a pretty depressing, glum journey.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58We got back to the lab and I said,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01"Look, have we really wasted the last year?
0:12:01 > 0:12:05"Is it possible that some of the work that we've done on the Vesta mission,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08"which they didn't choose, we could actually adapt
0:12:08 > 0:12:12"to this strange place Titan that they were proposing to go to?"
0:12:12 > 0:12:20We sat down with a cup of coffee and had a look at what it was that the European Space Agency had chosen.
0:12:28 > 0:12:35Cassini, as proposed, was going to be the most ambitious space mission ever sent to the outer solar system.
0:12:35 > 0:12:42It was planned to carry the first dedicated set of instruments for Saturn and its system,
0:12:42 > 0:12:49and it was to carry a probe that would detach and land on the surface of Titan.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56Now, pretty soon, we realised that the part of it that really interested
0:12:56 > 0:13:01us was the probe, which was going to descend through Titan's atmosphere.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06It was going to make the bulk of its measurements during the descent.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12And we realised how embarrassing it would be if the thing landed
0:13:12 > 0:13:16and it didn't have anything with which to make measurements on the surface.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22So we literally listed all of the physical properties
0:13:22 > 0:13:26that you might want to measure on the surface of Titan.
0:13:26 > 0:13:32We then wrote a proposal in response to the call for proposals to produce
0:13:32 > 0:13:37a quite ambitious, though small, little instrument called the Surface Science Package.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40We beat the deadline by about a day.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42We sat and waited for the decision.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45And, to our amazement, we were selected.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00A new and very exciting space probe is being planned for the 1990s.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03Dr John Zarnecki is closely associated with this probe,
0:14:03 > 0:14:06and we are delighted to welcome him now to the Sky at Night
0:14:06 > 0:14:08for the first time but I certainly hope not the last.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10- Welcome, John.- Thank you.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12I do my Sky at Night programme.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15I did do a programme about Titan, who to invite on it?
0:14:15 > 0:14:20Obviously, John. I didn't know then what a good broadcaster he was,
0:14:20 > 0:14:22and he came and we discussed Titan.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24'But, of course, so far,'
0:14:24 > 0:14:26we've only been able to study the top part of it.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31We still don't know what the surface is like and that's the reason for sending up this Titan lander.
0:14:31 > 0:14:32Will you tell us about that, John?
0:14:32 > 0:14:35I should tell you that it's already been christened in fact.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39It's called the Huygens probe, named after the Dutch physicist,
0:14:39 > 0:14:41Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan.
0:14:41 > 0:14:46'I was billed as a Titan expert.'
0:14:46 > 0:14:51I hadn't written a single scientific paper about Titan and this was a very bizarre situation.
0:14:51 > 0:14:58He didn't know much about the surface of Titan, but neither did anybody else, me as much as anybody.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04All in all, this is one of the most ambitious vehicles ever planned,
0:15:04 > 0:15:06what do you think are the chances of success?
0:15:06 > 0:15:11We must be optimistic, you would never embark on a mission like this if one wasn't optimistic.
0:15:11 > 0:15:18And I expect that we might be sitting here in 13 years' time discussing the results from the Cassini mission.
0:15:21 > 0:15:26'I think it began to dawn on us, just in the weeks after we were selected.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30'We had to produce an instrument, one of a set of six
0:15:30 > 0:15:34'scientific instruments, a bit bigger than a shoebox.
0:15:34 > 0:15:39'It had to travel in a probe in deep space for over seven years,
0:15:39 > 0:15:43'descend through this thick, rather mysterious atmosphere
0:15:43 > 0:15:49'and then make measurements on this very alien and unknown surface.
0:15:49 > 0:15:54'And it had to give us answers, it had to make sense of this alien world.'
0:15:54 > 0:15:56I mean that was a daunting prospect.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01I had to start building up the team.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04There were several critical positions.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Arguably the most important position is the project manager.
0:16:07 > 0:16:12That's the person who really runs the show day to day and brings the whole thing together.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17'OK, one thing we've got to decide is exactly who to send to the meeting with Peter.'
0:16:17 > 0:16:22One of my colleagues knew John Zarnecki from maybe 10, 15 years earlier
0:16:22 > 0:16:26and they said, "I saw John the other day and he's looking for a project manager,
0:16:26 > 0:16:27"why don't you give him a ring?"
0:16:27 > 0:16:31And, amazingly, because of him, I had this new space science career.
0:16:31 > 0:16:37The instrument had originally been selected in 1990 but the team were just getting going in 1992.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42When I arrived they'd just really had a few prototypes on the bench, some of them were very Blue Peter.
0:16:42 > 0:16:46I remember a washing-up bottle with a steel ruler attached that was the
0:16:46 > 0:16:52density sensor and the thing was huge and we had to turn this into an 8g sensor to fly to Titan.
0:16:52 > 0:16:58When Mark came on board, there were two big issues that we had to face.
0:16:58 > 0:17:04One was to put the final team together and, more importantly, was to get the funding.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07Because being selected was only half of the battle.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10We then had to get funding from our national agencies.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14'Our funding situation is stable,'
0:17:14 > 0:17:17if you call underfunding a good thing to report.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21We were underfunded two years ago and we're underfunded to the same extent now.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25We were cut back to about two-thirds of what we actually needed to do the job,
0:17:25 > 0:17:30so we had to look at clever ways of getting round the funding shortfall.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35This was around the time of perestroika, when the Iron Curtain was coming down.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41- NEWSREADER:- Bulldozers tonight began to open new holes in the Berlin Wall.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44Throughout the day, thousands of people have been crossing freely
0:17:44 > 0:17:48from East to West Berlin and back again.
0:17:48 > 0:17:54I saw an opportunity here to use some of the professional connections that I had with Poland
0:17:54 > 0:18:02to see whether we could go there and use their desire to work with the West in scientific research,
0:18:02 > 0:18:08and we found out that they were quite experienced at building space instruments,
0:18:08 > 0:18:10so basically we cut a deal.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14They would build a part of the instrument
0:18:14 > 0:18:21in exchange for coming on board and seeing essentially how space research was done in Western Europe.
0:18:21 > 0:18:26Now that was one thing that we did, the other was to take advantage
0:18:26 > 0:18:28of the fact that we were a university
0:18:28 > 0:18:34and one thing that universities have generally in profusion is students,
0:18:34 > 0:18:36and, generally, students are fairly cheap.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39I won't quite say slave labour but nearly.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48MUSIC: "Mirrorball" by Elbow
0:18:53 > 0:18:58The whole project seemed a lot like science fiction in the sense that somehow we were going to
0:18:58 > 0:19:02build this thing that was going to travel a billion miles through space
0:19:02 > 0:19:06and then parachute down through this atmosphere at minus 200 Celsius
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and touch the surface of one of the moons of Saturn.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13It just boggles the mind that you can contemplate doing that.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18Ralph is enthusiastic about everything he turns his attention to,
0:19:18 > 0:19:25and he became very quickly embroiled in all aspects of Titan.
0:19:25 > 0:19:31And one of the tasks that we assigned to him was to develop the penetrometer.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35One the things we really want to answer with the Surface Science
0:19:35 > 0:19:38Package is what is the actual nature of the surface of Titan?
0:19:38 > 0:19:43What's it made of? Is it solid like ice or is it slushy or is it liquid?
0:19:43 > 0:19:48This part of the package, called a penetrometer, aims to do that by measuring how hard we land in it.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50As the probe comes down, we measure the impact forces.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53It's very strange, you sort of come into this from the outside thinking
0:19:53 > 0:19:58that there's some massive team of top notch engineers and scientists
0:19:58 > 0:20:02who've done this all before and that you will be allocated some little part of it.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05And the reality is, there's never enough people
0:20:05 > 0:20:09and everyone is improvising because nobody's built anything that went to Titan before.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12So it was at first a little strange and surprising that
0:20:12 > 0:20:15I'd get to do this but it was an incredible opportunity.
0:20:25 > 0:20:27In the early days of the project,
0:20:27 > 0:20:31we were being followed by a BBC crew who were filming
0:20:31 > 0:20:36some aspects of the project for an Open University programme.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40It was an eye opener - the first time I'd been involved in that kind of thing.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43They actually set up a little video diary for us,
0:20:43 > 0:20:47a little passport photo, where you just sit in front of this video camera and say what had happened.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51It's April 13th, last week we donned these crazy suits and went in
0:20:51 > 0:20:55the clean room to assemble the engineering model penetrator.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59This instrument will perform thermal properties measurements
0:20:59 > 0:21:04to show the thermal conductivity and the temperature of the Titan ocean.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07This will be sent to a way to be shaken, baked,
0:21:07 > 0:21:11and electrically tested in what is called the top hat,
0:21:11 > 0:21:13that is the thing that holds all the experiments.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16As you can see, it's quite small and fiddly,
0:21:16 > 0:21:17but I'm rather pleased with it.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21Science students tend to be nerdy,
0:21:21 > 0:21:26and, I think, as a group we conformed to that stereotype,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29so that it means you're really utterly focused on what you're doing
0:21:29 > 0:21:34when you have three years where you have no other commitments other than to do your research,
0:21:34 > 0:21:40and because building a space experiment going to Titan is such a motivating thing,
0:21:40 > 0:21:43it was really wonderful actually to have that focus.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49The penetrometer was a fairly simple sensor in concept,
0:21:49 > 0:21:54but actually doing it well took a lot of work and a lot of effort.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59Ralph was involved with running a load of prototype tests and dropping things into bucket of sand
0:21:59 > 0:22:03and seeing how different tip shapes responded, etc.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07I remember one of the first things we did was got some sand from Whitstable Beach
0:22:07 > 0:22:13and that was a huge mistake because it was real sand at the sea and so it was all wet and salty.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16And, of course, salty water is an electrical conductor and of course
0:22:16 > 0:22:19the signals we got from that were just terrible.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23It was building an instrument to go somewhere that we didn't know what
0:22:23 > 0:22:26we were going to land on, and that was a real part of the fascination.
0:22:26 > 0:22:31It's one thing to make a measurement in a laboratory, it's another to make an experiment that is going
0:22:31 > 0:22:36to work, for sure, seven years later after travelling through space for a billion miles,
0:22:36 > 0:22:40that's going to work at 200 degrees below zero
0:22:40 > 0:22:44and that isn't going to suffer any kind of problem.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49The biggest fears we had were landing on absolutely sharp, exposed ice, which meant the runners of the
0:22:49 > 0:22:55probe might die pretty quickly, and our challenge was to get the data back before the probe died.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59At the time, one of the main speculations about Titan's surface
0:22:59 > 0:23:04was that it was covered by a global ocean of liquid methane
0:23:04 > 0:23:07and so I spent quite a lot of time doing my PhD
0:23:07 > 0:23:11modelling the splashdown dynamics, looking at all the old
0:23:11 > 0:23:15Apollo literature of how a capsule decelerates when it hits the water,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18and trying to figure out how much the Huygens probe
0:23:18 > 0:23:21would decelerate if it landed in liquid methane.
0:23:27 > 0:23:29A lot of it was theoretical stuff.
0:23:29 > 0:23:35Do we have global oceans, do we have seas, do we have lakes, anywhere in between?
0:23:37 > 0:23:41The natural speculation was, Well, it'll be like landing
0:23:41 > 0:23:48on Mars or landing on the moon but we had no idea what the materials really are, if it's ice
0:23:48 > 0:23:54or if it's ground-up ice like sand, or if it's some sort of organic dust that's very fluffy.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57So we had to consider all these possibilities.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59We certainly didn't know anything
0:23:59 > 0:24:01that would let us exclude any of them.
0:24:06 > 0:24:11This is the final engineering model of the Huygens Surface
0:24:11 > 0:24:15Science Package, containing its nine different sensors.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18We've got here the speed of sound instrument
0:24:18 > 0:24:23to measure the speed of sound in the atmosphere and on the surface.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28Here we have the sonar, designed to send a signal down to the
0:24:28 > 0:24:33surface of Titan or to the bottom of the lake to measure its depth.
0:24:33 > 0:24:38Inside this enclosure here, we've got six further instruments to measure
0:24:38 > 0:24:44various properties of the liquid or the solid surface,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48and finally we have here the penetrometer.
0:24:48 > 0:24:52MUSIC: "Future Proof" by Massive Attack
0:24:54 > 0:24:59Yeah, output lines are clear and we're running at about 6 PSI over ambience.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03Once you get into the hardware phase of the project,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06there's testing, testing, testing,
0:25:06 > 0:25:11and some of these tests run for tens of hours at a time.
0:25:14 > 0:25:19There were times when I felt that I knew my milkman better than
0:25:19 > 0:25:24my family because I was arriving home at 5 o'clock in the morning.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26Can we have temperatures please, James?
0:25:26 > 0:25:30Top cavity 111, bottom cavity 114.
0:25:30 > 0:25:36For this particular mission, one of the really unusual things was when we got there, we were going into
0:25:36 > 0:25:41a very, very cold environment, so many of the sensors we needed to test in liquid methane.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46It is a little bit hazardous, so we were doing this on the roof of the physics building,
0:25:46 > 0:25:50I guess the logic being that if we blew up, we only blew ourselves up and no-one else.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57A project like this inevitably put strains
0:25:57 > 0:26:00on all the individuals involved, and that's challenging enough.
0:26:00 > 0:26:06I'm not sure that my family really understood quite what I was doing,
0:26:06 > 0:26:11they sort of supported me, but probably thought that I was the crazy scientist
0:26:11 > 0:26:15and maybe every family had to have one crazy scientist.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19I was very lucky in the sense that I'm quite a self-motivated,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23self-driven kind of guy so I didn't need a lot of handholding.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28And that was just as well because John was a busy man.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33The job he was doing as a university lecturer and building a space experiment was quite demanding,
0:26:33 > 0:26:37and he was going through some personal difficulties at the time too.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41The early days of the project coincided with the breakdown of my marriage,
0:26:41 > 0:26:46so I have to say there was about a year in the project
0:26:46 > 0:26:49that was very, very difficult.
0:26:49 > 0:26:53I find it difficult even to think back to those times.
0:26:53 > 0:27:01It was difficult to keep everything going, frankly,
0:27:01 > 0:27:06and I was very lucky I had a really good team who, when things got very difficult for me,
0:27:06 > 0:27:10they were more than able to keep the show on the road.
0:27:10 > 0:27:16There were some very, very long working hours involved, particularly when you get to the flight model
0:27:16 > 0:27:19and you're trying to get everything to meet the deadline.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21If you miss the delivery, you're not going to Titan.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24You ever have one of those weeks where nothing works?
0:27:24 > 0:27:27Our fax machine is broken, the photocopier didn't work,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30the coffee machine is broken down,
0:27:30 > 0:27:34even the BBC's bloody light has stopped, so we have to improvise with this desk lamp.
0:27:34 > 0:27:40I'm sitting in this dark old laboratory with an experiment that's not working and you sort of think,
0:27:40 > 0:27:43is this really what I want to do? Have I made the right decision?
0:27:43 > 0:27:45But then you remember the bigger picture.
0:27:45 > 0:27:53The project developed, it was hard and painful at times, but finally we got to the very last test.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55This was the vibration test.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58And can you believe what happened?
0:27:58 > 0:27:59The damned thing broke.
0:28:01 > 0:28:06The structure which held our instrument together cracked.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09I was personally devastated to hear the news.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11I realised the impact of it straightaway,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14that even just rebuilding the top hat was going to be a problem,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17but the fact we had to rebuild the sensors too
0:28:17 > 0:28:22meant that every aspect of the project had its hands full with a huge, huge workload.
0:28:22 > 0:28:27It was really the possibility that the European Space Agency might say, "I'm sorry, guys,
0:28:27 > 0:28:29"you're not going to make the delivery date,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32"you're not going to be on the probe, you're not going to Titan."
0:28:32 > 0:28:37And, at that point, it was at least four years of my life dedicated to that instrument.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40We had to find a solution, we had to get out of this hole.
0:28:40 > 0:28:46It had taken maybe six months to build this flight model,
0:28:46 > 0:28:49and we were two weeks away from delivery and had to rebuild the whole thing.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52For John, it was an even longer time on this project
0:28:52 > 0:28:55and, again, he knew instantly that there was a chance
0:28:55 > 0:28:57we were getting thrown off this mission.
0:28:57 > 0:29:04We came up with a strategy, whereby we would deliver the engineering model to the spacecraft,
0:29:04 > 0:29:07that would enable ESA to continue with their programme,
0:29:07 > 0:29:10they couldn't hold it up.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14This meant we had to dismantle the whole thing, remove all the harness,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17fix the structure but also build flight spare instruments,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21calibrate them, put the whole thing back together.
0:29:21 > 0:29:28In the end, it took about three or four months to go through the whole thing again but it was touch and go.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31We worked around it,
0:29:31 > 0:29:35we came up with an alternative design, and we delivered that to the spacecraft.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39Late, but it was working.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42MUSIC: "Safe From Harm" by Massive Attack
0:29:51 > 0:29:54- NEWS REPORTER: - Titan, the hazy moon around Saturn.
0:29:54 > 0:30:00Today a huge rocket is being prepared to explore that distant world.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04Europe and America have joined forces in a 3.5 billion mission called Cassini.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11This was it. We flew out to Florida for the launch.
0:30:11 > 0:30:16To our surprise, we were actually greeted there by protesters.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20'With legions of protesters climbing the gates at the air station,
0:30:20 > 0:30:21'opponents have maintained that
0:30:21 > 0:30:26'NASA's plutonium powered satellite could kill the innocent should something go wrong.'
0:30:26 > 0:30:29They blow up all the time here, you know and,
0:30:29 > 0:30:31for some reason of insanity I can't imagine,
0:30:31 > 0:30:35they're going to stick 72lbs of plutonium atop this thing.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38What I want to see is a safe world.
0:30:38 > 0:30:40I don't want nuclear in space.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45If you go out to the distance of Saturn from the sun,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47sunlight is very weak,
0:30:47 > 0:30:52so you can't use the traditional way of generating electricity
0:30:52 > 0:30:55on a spacecraft, which is to use solar cells.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58So, you have to do something else and this is true
0:30:58 > 0:31:00of all outer solar system missions.
0:31:00 > 0:31:05And what is done is to use radioactive material.
0:31:05 > 0:31:07This case plutonium.
0:31:07 > 0:31:09And you use the radiation that it emits
0:31:09 > 0:31:12essentially to generate electricity.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15That's the only way you can do it.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24There seemed to be a sort of knee-jerk reaction that
0:31:24 > 0:31:29radioactivity is this terrible thing but, for me, it was just
0:31:29 > 0:31:32a necessary part of the spacecraft.
0:31:32 > 0:31:34But how would the protests affect the launch?
0:31:34 > 0:31:39Would they get in the way, would we be getting tomatoes thrown at us?
0:31:39 > 0:31:44It took me back to my time as a student in the 1960s
0:31:44 > 0:31:47when I was doing the protesting, when I was carrying the banners.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51Now there I was, I was having to cross the picket line.
0:32:08 > 0:32:10The launch was in the middle of the night at about three o'clock
0:32:10 > 0:32:13in the morning and I think, because of security and so on,
0:32:13 > 0:32:15they had special buses arranged for us.
0:32:16 > 0:32:17Are you nervous?
0:32:18 > 0:32:19Yes, I am.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22Yeah, I'm a little nervous, yes, just a bit.
0:32:22 > 0:32:26Seven years' work and this is the make or break night.
0:32:26 > 0:32:31There's a lot of work down the line from here but this is really
0:32:31 > 0:32:33one place where it could fall down.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36'It was always in the back of our minds that any rocket is only'
0:32:36 > 0:32:4095, 97% reliable, so there's a good chance
0:32:40 > 0:32:44that if the mission fails it was going to fail now.
0:32:46 > 0:32:48'Launch command systems now enabled.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51'T minus 1 minute 30 seconds.'
0:32:51 > 0:32:54Sat there biting fingernails and trying not to get too nervous,
0:32:54 > 0:32:59waiting for the OK that they are going to launch.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01'T minus 10,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04'9, 8, 7...
0:33:04 > 0:33:07'6, 5, 4,
0:33:07 > 0:33:10'3, 2, 1.'
0:33:19 > 0:33:22I saw flames at the base of the rocket and the first thing
0:33:22 > 0:33:25that went through my mind was that the rocket's caught fire
0:33:25 > 0:33:28and it's about to blow up or something because the
0:33:28 > 0:33:32ignition happens but it's several miles away, and so the sound of the
0:33:32 > 0:33:34ignition hasn't reached you yet,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37you just see the flames and then you see the rocket start to ascend.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34Then the direct sound hits you and there's this wall of deep
0:34:34 > 0:34:38rumbling bass and you get a sense, wow, now we're really on our way.
0:35:06 > 0:35:11Cassini goes up and it was almost by design, there was a cloud about,
0:35:11 > 0:35:14I think, 1,000 feet or so right
0:35:14 > 0:35:19above the launcher and then after a few seconds it went into this cloud.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24There was almost an explosion of light, it looked like the thing had blown up.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28This cloud was just a huge ball of fire, it looked like.
0:35:28 > 0:35:33For a fraction of a second it was horror, it's gone, we've lost it,
0:35:33 > 0:35:38but then we saw Cassini appearing above the cloud.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42It was coming through and then it went up into this clear
0:35:42 > 0:35:47black sky, absolutely serene, a truly wonderful sight.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54Once it was off and through that cloud, you knew it was going,
0:35:54 > 0:35:55you knew it was going to be a good launch.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58I guess I kept an eye on the rocket all the way up
0:35:58 > 0:35:59till it was a tiny dot.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15During the journey to Titan,
0:36:15 > 0:36:22we actually moved our team to the Open University in Milton Keynes.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26A lot of things do happen in some respects, I mean one is rather sad
0:36:26 > 0:36:31because the team that we'd built up to design, build, and launch the SSP,
0:36:31 > 0:36:33much of that team dissolves.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38We don't have the funding to keep that team going all the way through.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43But we kept a core team together because roughly every six months
0:36:43 > 0:36:46we switched the instruments on and we ran through
0:36:46 > 0:36:48what are called housekeeping tests.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51How do you go into mode 4, on time or on altitude?
0:36:51 > 0:36:55This time we went in using the 7 km as altitude.
0:36:55 > 0:36:57We'd check out the instrument,
0:36:57 > 0:37:00make sure the spacecraft was working fine, that our instrument was working fine.
0:37:00 > 0:37:02There were a few minor things we monitored
0:37:02 > 0:37:05and a few software bits we changed. Nothing too major from our side.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34What you have do understand is that when Huygens
0:37:34 > 0:37:38was planned to be descending onto the surface of Titan,
0:37:38 > 0:37:41it would be relaying its data not directly back to Earth,
0:37:41 > 0:37:43there just wasn't the power for that,
0:37:43 > 0:37:45but sending the data up to Cassini,
0:37:45 > 0:37:49which would be flying some thousands of kilometres overhead.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53Cassini would then relay it a few hours later back to the Earth.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57There was a major scare on the spacecraft.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01They tried a particular test of the communication system and realised that there was a
0:38:01 > 0:38:03problem and with the mission as it was designed,
0:38:03 > 0:38:05we weren't going to get the science data back.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10One thing that was tried was using a radio telescope on the ground
0:38:10 > 0:38:14to pretend to be Huygens and transmit a signal as if it was Huygens,
0:38:14 > 0:38:18to check that Cassini could receive that signal correctly.
0:38:18 > 0:38:23When the results of the test were reported to us in a science meeting,
0:38:23 > 0:38:27they said we did the test and we're not sure quite what happened
0:38:27 > 0:38:30because we didn't get all of the data back.
0:38:30 > 0:38:36To put it simply, it's as if Huygens was transmitting on Radio 1
0:38:36 > 0:38:39and Cassini was receiving on Radio 2.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42In other words there was a very slight mismatch
0:38:42 > 0:38:45in the frequencies but it was enough
0:38:45 > 0:38:49to potentially scupper the whole of the Huygens project.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52That was obviously a huge, huge problem,
0:38:52 > 0:38:56very frightening from the scientists' point of view
0:38:56 > 0:38:59but the system quickly got together and came up with some options for solutions.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03There were 11 possible
0:39:03 > 0:39:07options that were found that might be able to address this problem.
0:39:07 > 0:39:13In the end we picked on one of them as being the potential saviour.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17This involved Cassini, instead of releasing Huygens
0:39:17 > 0:39:21on the first orbit around Saturn, releasing it on the third orbit.
0:39:21 > 0:39:28That would change the geometry between Cassini and Huygens by just the right amount
0:39:28 > 0:39:33to bring the two frequencies back into synchronism, quite remarkable.
0:39:40 > 0:39:44'Now how long does it take a spacecraft to travel 2 billion miles
0:39:44 > 0:39:47'between planet Earth and Saturn?
0:39:47 > 0:39:50'Nearly seven years is the answer and tonight,
0:39:50 > 0:39:53'for the spacecraft Cassini, the journey is nearly over.'
0:39:55 > 0:39:59Well, today's the culmination of our seven-year trip through
0:39:59 > 0:40:03space and we are arriving at Saturn and we're going to fire the engine to stop us into orbit around Saturn,
0:40:03 > 0:40:08so it's the end of the trip but really the start of the tour.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12The excitement for me is in the future when we get close to Titan
0:40:12 > 0:40:19but this is a big moment so kind of a bit of a party atmosphere here in Pasadena to celebrate the arrival.
0:40:19 > 0:40:25There have been one or two occasions in planetary exploration where spacecraft have blown up
0:40:25 > 0:40:28on arrival when they've used their engines for the first time.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32Current Cassini altitude 20,700 km,
0:40:32 > 0:40:4012,900 miles, with a speed of 30.7 km per second, 68,600 mph.
0:40:40 > 0:40:42We are slowing down.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46Cassini would have to use its main engine for a very large burn
0:40:46 > 0:40:50to break into orbit around Saturn so it was a tense moment.
0:40:50 > 0:40:55We'd be crossing the ring plain as well which has some element of hazard to it.
0:40:58 > 0:41:00Go ahead, Com.
0:41:00 > 0:41:02The Doppler has blacked out.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14OK, we have burn complete here for the FY orbit insertion burn.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19That was a big moment,
0:41:19 > 0:41:25and then once it was in orbit then everything was just quiet and
0:41:25 > 0:41:29basically following the script just the way it was supposed to.
0:41:29 > 0:41:34It would actually be a little over six months before Huygens was delivered to Titan.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55# Oh, the weather outside is frightful
0:41:55 > 0:41:58# But the fire is so delightful
0:41:58 > 0:42:01# And since we've no place to go
0:42:01 > 0:42:05# Let it snow, let it snow let it snow. #
0:42:05 > 0:42:09Christmas Day 2004, it was the day
0:42:09 > 0:42:13of the planned release of the Huygens probe from Cassini.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16Basically there were a set of explosive bolts that released
0:42:16 > 0:42:20Huygens, and a set of springs pushed it off on spiral rails
0:42:20 > 0:42:23that gave it a spin to stabilise it.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26Everything was pre-programmed on Cassini,
0:42:26 > 0:42:30we were monitoring it and it went fantastically.
0:42:33 > 0:42:39From that point on, Huygens was on its own, completely autonomous.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42It didn't even carry a radio receiver,
0:42:42 > 0:42:46so from then on if we'd wanted to change something we couldn't,
0:42:46 > 0:42:48we were completely powerless.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50The die was cast from that point.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12When I got into the control centre, basically everyone I met was as
0:43:12 > 0:43:18excited also as nervous as I was about the whole mission.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21There was an enormous air of expectation,
0:43:21 > 0:43:25it had been building up for the last few days.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30We went into the science room that morning knowing that
0:43:30 > 0:43:33whatever was going to happen was going to happen, this was the day.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37Some people had said Oh, nobody will be interested in this,
0:43:37 > 0:43:42but by this time we had something like 300 of the world's press there
0:43:42 > 0:43:45waiting to see what would happen.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48There was lots of vans and TV cameras parked outside
0:43:48 > 0:43:52and anyone who could be grabbed by media guys were getting grabbed.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55There was a little bit of a siege mentality,
0:43:55 > 0:43:58a scientist was kind of walled away in our little room.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02It was hard to concentrate on the important work
0:44:02 > 0:44:05and not get distracted by all the calls for your time.
0:44:08 > 0:44:14I couldn't stop thinking that about 1.5 billion miles away
0:44:14 > 0:44:20out there, there was something that I had built about this size,
0:44:20 > 0:44:24and it was hurtling through space at 20,000 mph
0:44:24 > 0:44:28and it was about to get a rude awakening.
0:44:31 > 0:44:36The plan was Huygens would hit the top of Titan's atmosphere
0:44:36 > 0:44:38at a speed of 7 km a second.
0:44:38 > 0:44:45Over the next two minutes it would slow down to about 400m a second.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50At that point, Huygens would deploy the first of three parachutes and that
0:44:50 > 0:44:55would enable it to float down to the surface at a relatively slow speed.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58Then the six scientific instruments would be switched on
0:44:58 > 0:45:02to really perform their job that they'd been waiting for
0:45:02 > 0:45:05for about seven and a half years.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20Around 10:30 in the morning, a rumour comes through
0:45:20 > 0:45:24that one of the largest radio telescopes on the Earth
0:45:24 > 0:45:28has picked up a signal directly from Huygens.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33It looks like we've heard the baby crying.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35We still can't understand what it tells us,
0:45:35 > 0:45:38but clearly it tells us that the probe is alive,
0:45:38 > 0:45:42the entry has been successful, we are on the parachute,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45and the probe is transmitting.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53The project scientist Jean-Pierre Lebreton announced that news and
0:45:53 > 0:45:56there was a huge cheer, it really meant a lot to all of us.
0:45:56 > 0:45:59We knew that the most critical part of the mission was successful.
0:45:59 > 0:46:01It is absolutely fantastic news.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04It's like hearing the ringing tone on the phone,
0:46:04 > 0:46:06it tells us the phone is working.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10There's no information on it yet but it's absolutely fantastic.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15That was great news because it means that it wasn't gone
0:46:15 > 0:46:18without trace, that even if we didn't get all the data back
0:46:18 > 0:46:23or if the probe didn't make it down to the surface, at least there was something.
0:46:23 > 0:46:29We have a signal meaning that we knew that Huygens is alive,
0:46:29 > 0:46:31so the dream is alive.
0:46:31 > 0:46:36Though it really encouraged us, we still had a long time to wait.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39The real scientific data wasn't expected
0:46:39 > 0:46:42till halfway through the afternoon.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18We were expecting to get the data
0:47:18 > 0:47:23at around 17:25 Central European Time,
0:47:23 > 0:47:26so we were gathered in the main control room,
0:47:26 > 0:47:29there was lots of banter, lots of discussion,
0:47:29 > 0:47:32people were excited, people were talking.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37As we got towards the time, we were watching the screens,
0:47:37 > 0:47:41I noticed that things were starting to get a bit tense.
0:47:47 > 0:47:52I was just listening to some of the discussions on the voice link and there was something
0:47:52 > 0:47:54that concerned me, there was a missing command,
0:47:54 > 0:47:57and I knew that for some instruments this was
0:47:57 > 0:47:58going to be a technical problem,
0:47:58 > 0:48:02we were maybe going to have some system problems and lose some data.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06So that really ramped up the nerves after we've had the really good news
0:48:06 > 0:48:10and we know the probe itself is worked, had we lost the data?
0:48:12 > 0:48:1917:25 came and went, nothing, absolutely nothing on the screens.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23I can remember my mouth going very dry
0:48:23 > 0:48:27and it got very quiet in that room.
0:48:28 > 0:48:32OK, maybe I've got the time slightly wrong, is my watch exactly right,
0:48:32 > 0:48:34and for the first minute it
0:48:34 > 0:48:41wasn't too much of a concern and then you could feel the tension in the room building.
0:48:44 > 0:48:50I really had visions now of the last 17 years having been wasted.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53Something had happened to our probe,
0:48:53 > 0:48:55parachutes hadn't deployed,
0:48:55 > 0:48:59the probe had burned up, the transmitter had malfunctioned.
0:48:59 > 0:49:04I really imagined us staring at blank screens.
0:49:06 > 0:49:11And then, and I think it was about six minutes later than we expected,
0:49:11 > 0:49:15suddenly there was a shout and I looked up and I could
0:49:15 > 0:49:19see on the screen in front of me one of the columns
0:49:19 > 0:49:22where we were expecting data was full.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25This was real data coming through from Huygens.
0:49:35 > 0:49:40It was absolute huge relief to see the screens light up
0:49:40 > 0:49:42with colour and display.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46You could just feel the tension pop in the room.
0:49:55 > 0:50:00People could start seeing from the data various
0:50:00 > 0:50:05aspects of the descent, they could tell what speed we were falling at.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09After a while, somebody said you know we've had two hours of descent,
0:50:09 > 0:50:12I mean we must be getting close to the surface.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24My instrument, the Surface Science Package, its main aim was
0:50:24 > 0:50:29to make measurements for however long we lasted on the surface.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33We were told initially anyway to plan for three minutes on
0:50:33 > 0:50:41the surface only, so we designed it for all of our measurements to be done in that very narrow timeframe.
0:50:41 > 0:50:46If we didn't reach the surface by 151 minutes then actually we'd time
0:50:46 > 0:50:50out into surface mode, which would be disaster because we'd actually
0:50:50 > 0:50:51lose some of our major data,
0:50:51 > 0:50:55and the probe was descending way, way slower than anyone expected.
0:50:55 > 0:51:00SSP, can I have a status report?
0:51:00 > 0:51:03'OMSSP, status nominal on B.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07'We think we've detected surface.'
0:51:10 > 0:51:14In the end we had just over three minutes spare when we hit the surface.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24I came back into the support area and heard that the data had been
0:51:24 > 0:51:28delivered and so I went up to my colleagues and I wanted the data.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31It was on a stick, so I was Who's got the stick, give me the stick!
0:51:31 > 0:51:34I ran into the lab,
0:51:34 > 0:51:38the guys were there clustered around one single PC screen and just as I
0:51:38 > 0:51:41got there and I was about to ask the question, Do we have data yet?
0:51:41 > 0:51:45the screen burst into life and we saw every single sensor had worked.
0:51:45 > 0:51:51We'd got effectively a perfect data set, and the boys were ecstatic.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55There was tremendous outpouring of emotion in that room
0:51:55 > 0:51:59and I have to say that I did go off
0:51:59 > 0:52:03at one point into the corner and I...
0:52:03 > 0:52:07I was crying, frankly. It was I think the release of all that emotion
0:52:07 > 0:52:09after all of those years.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11We'd been through so much together.
0:52:15 > 0:52:21'So we are the first visitors of Titan, and scientific
0:52:21 > 0:52:26'data that we are collecting now shall unveil the secrets.'
0:52:26 > 0:52:31A few of the guys were looking just at the impact data
0:52:31 > 0:52:33and looking at the penetrative data,
0:52:33 > 0:52:37and there was a distinct spike right at the start of the signal.
0:52:39 > 0:52:45We've hit something hard, it's as if we've hit a crust on the top,
0:52:45 > 0:52:53and then after that the material below is much softer and we've pushed into that without much resistance.
0:52:53 > 0:53:00We had to make a chart for John to present to the media at the press conference later that evening
0:53:00 > 0:53:03of what the possibilities were and we sort of wrote,
0:53:03 > 0:53:06"Well it could be sort of like packed snow or maybe
0:53:06 > 0:53:09"sort of wet clay but there's this extra spike at the beginning
0:53:09 > 0:53:11"so maybe there's a crust."
0:53:11 > 0:53:15And one of my team actually has suggested an alternative analogue and
0:53:15 > 0:53:19this is because of the crust perhaps we see there,
0:53:19 > 0:53:21and that is creme brulee,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25but I don't suppose that will be appearing in our papers.
0:53:25 > 0:53:31And the media just love that, it was a headline in Nature magazine
0:53:31 > 0:53:35that week, "Titan Team Gets Its Just Desserts with Creme Brulee Surface"
0:53:35 > 0:53:39or something so that was really good PR coming up with that analogy.
0:53:39 > 0:53:45We can report that the Surface Science Package collected data
0:53:45 > 0:53:47for 3 hours 37 minutes.
0:53:47 > 0:53:50Apart from any scientific and engineering importance
0:53:50 > 0:53:53of that figure, some of you might have heard
0:53:53 > 0:53:57that we had a sweepstake in our team for the moment of impact
0:53:57 > 0:54:01and I'm slightly embarrassed, I have to tell you,
0:54:01 > 0:54:04that it was I who won the sweepstake
0:54:04 > 0:54:09and the prize, which was a very old bottle of Scottish medicine...
0:54:10 > 0:54:15..was consumed by the team at about 2:30 this morning.
0:54:15 > 0:54:16John put in a good bet,
0:54:16 > 0:54:20he was 10 seconds off on a two and a half hour descent time, that's
0:54:20 > 0:54:22almost a magical touch I think.
0:54:26 > 0:54:28Oh, no, it seemed actually entirely appropriate.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32I mean he was the leader, he was the guy that made it all happen.
0:54:54 > 0:54:59There was barely a single day since the project had started
0:54:59 > 0:55:05when I hadn't tried to imagine what the surface of Titan looked like.
0:55:18 > 0:55:23I remember the first few images that we saw were quite remarkable.
0:55:23 > 0:55:29We saw this landscape carved with what look like river channels.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31The theory there had been liquid
0:55:31 > 0:55:34on the surface of Titan was true,
0:55:34 > 0:55:39it was absolutely amazing to see it, the first people to see that image.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42Also it struck me that it looks so much like Earth.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49It looked like Arizona, it looked like the French Riviera,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53it looked familiar and that wasn't something I think we were expecting.
0:55:58 > 0:56:01And then we saw the landing image,
0:56:01 > 0:56:04the area immediately around the probe.
0:56:04 > 0:56:10It was an area that seemed to be strewn with boulders and I
0:56:10 > 0:56:16just couldn't believe that our probe, that we of course knew so well, and
0:56:16 > 0:56:22my beloved instruments on board, were actually sitting quietly, serenely,
0:56:22 > 0:56:24on this surface environment.
0:56:40 > 0:56:45What we've learned is that Titan's surface is incredibly varied.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48It shows features which show some similarities,
0:56:48 > 0:56:50at least superficially, with Earth.
0:56:50 > 0:56:56We're now pretty certain that we see lakes and seas of liquid methane.
0:56:56 > 0:57:04There's a whole range of geophysical processes going on that's shaping the surface of Titan.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07We've learned an enormous amount about the atmosphere.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11We have a stratosphere, we have a troposphere,
0:57:11 > 0:57:14we have weather, we have weather on Titan.
0:57:20 > 0:57:22I think it shows our sphere
0:57:22 > 0:57:25of influence, if you like, our sphere of knowledge
0:57:25 > 0:57:27expanding beyond the Earth.
0:57:29 > 0:57:34Our machines have put their foot on the surface of Titan.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36We've shown that we can do it.
0:57:36 > 0:57:39It's part of that process of exploration
0:57:39 > 0:57:41that I think we've always done.
0:57:41 > 0:57:45It's part of what defines us as human beings.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09To get closer to the Mission to Titan and explore the stars yourself
0:58:09 > 0:58:12with the Open University's Virtual Planisphere, go to:
0:58:15 > 0:58:17Follow the links to the Open University.
0:58:44 > 0:58:47Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:47 > 0:58:50Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk