Cassini-Huygens

Updated May 8, 2019 | Infoplease Staff

The Cassini-Huygens mission, launched in 1997 as a joint endeavor of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian space agency, went into orbit around Saturn on June 30, 2004, and began sending images of Saturn's rings back to Earth the next day. Cassini will orbit Saturn 74 times and will make 44 flybys of Titan and 8 flybys of other satellites in its 4-year orbiting schedule. In Jan. 2005, the Huygens probe descended through Titan’s atmosphere, sending back 2 hours and 27 minutes of descent data and 1 hour and 12 minutes of surface data after the crash landing.