The Cassini-Huygen's Mission to Titan
On October 15, 1997, the robotic Cassini spacecraft began its lengthy flight, traveling to Saturn by way of Venus, Earth and Jupiter! The journey took 7 years and reached Saturn in 2004. Cassini is now at Saturn: click HERE to see its current location. Cassini will make one sweep past Titan to make a radar map of Titan's surface. Here is one of those maps
While the Cassini Orbiter continues to explore Saturn and its rings, the Huygens probe will be released to rendezvous with Titan. Huygens descent. At the end of a 22-day cruise to Titan, the probe will plunge through the atmosphere at 20 000 km/h, taking from 2 - 2½ hours to reach Titan's surface. A heat shield protects it from temperatures of more than 12 000° and acts as a brake. As it slows to 1,400 km/h a series of parachutes will be deployed to provide a controlled descent and a stable platform for scientific measurements.
Huygens' six instruments took measurements throughout its spectacular descent, providing details on the chemical composition of Titan's atmosphere, its weather and clouds, and then the surface itself. Spectacular data and images are available from the descent itself. Comparing Surfaces Videos of Huygen's Probe