The European Space Agency's Huygens probe successfully detached from NASA's Cassini orbiter today to begin a three-week journey to Saturn's moon Titan. NASA's Deep Space Network tracking stations in Madrid, Spain, and Goldstone, Calif., received the signal at 7:24 p.m. (PST). All systems performed as expected and there were no problems reported with the Cassini spacecraft. There was a very real probability it would have never have happened if it weren't for the persistence of a swedish engineer.
posted by Keyser Soze on Dec 24, 2004 - 14 comments

Mars Express Image Browser The European Space Agency's Mars Express site has been linked before, but this neat little flash globe lets you rotate the planet yourself and select various viewpoints for more detailed pictures of the surface. Some of the pictures are stunning, others just don't look real.
posted by The Ultimate Olympian on Dec 23, 2004 - 3 comments

The European Space Agency's Mars Express blasted off from Russia's Baikonur base today carrying the British-built Beagle 2 space probe atop a modified version of Russia's Soyuz rocket (a modified ICBM) tasked with finding water and life on Mars. Will it overcome the curse of Mars? Of 30 missions to Mars, 8 have gone as planed, a %74 Martian mission failure rate.
posted by stbalbach on Jun 2, 2003 - 13 comments