Cassini-Huygens

Cassini-Huygens was a joint NASA/ESA/ISA mission to explore the Saturn system and deploy a probe into the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Launched in 1997 Cassini is still orbiting Saturn and continuing to make incredible discoveries. The Huygens probe successfully sampled the atmosphere of Titan and landed on its icy surface in January 2005 – this was the first ever landing in the outer solar system.

Mark led the Huygens Surface Science Package (SSP) project as programme manager from Phase A through to launch and cruise checkout phases. He managed instrument design, test and calibration and led the spacecraft delivery, integration and test phases at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC).

Mark was then Programme Manager for SSP and the Accelerometer sub-system in the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI) at the Open University. He built a new team and led preparations for the successful Huygens probe landing on Titan.

Mark in ESOC Main Control Room shortly after the Huygens landing

See the award winning BBC documentary Destination Titan for an insight into the challenges and excitement of the Huygens mission: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0109ccd

Mark was also UK Project Manager for the Cassini Cosmic Dust Analyser (CDA) which measured the nature of the Saturn dust population and contributed to the discovery of water geysers on the moon Enceladus.

The Cassini mission will come to a spectacular end in September 2017 with the Cassini orbiter first flying within Saturn’s rings, and then flying closer and closer to Saturn, before burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere.