VLBI-observation of ‘Huygens’ probe

JIVE -Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) in Europe -has managed under ESA contract the VLBI data acquisition of a stabile carrier-signal from Huygens' probe during landing on Titan in January 2004, using ~17 radio telescopes. Evaluation and investigation of the data is included in the same ESA contract. The scenario was described in a previous ICATT Conference (van 't Klooster, 2005). This presentation provides some published information of Huygens descent-trajectory as derived by JIVE. VLBI can be used for special radio-physical investigations, accurate Doppler information is a by-product. VLBI is applied now and in space-missions to come: probes, landers or spacecrafts for navigational, scientific or even telemetry tasks.