Rescuing the Huygens Mission From Fiasco

On January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe, which forms part of the joint NASA/ESA/ASI deep-space mission Cassini-Huygens, accomplished its spectacular descent through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. This mission success, however, became possible only after the rescue of the endeavor from an implementation flaw that was discovered in 2000 during an in-orbit test of the Huygens relay-link receiver. The problem threatened to cripple the entire $350 million probe mission.