On the Huygens landing

[rthorvald]

Huygens:
Anyone know what they did with the parachute? Was it released before touchdown? If not, how did they avoid it falling over the probe?

The reason i??m asking is here: http://runar.thorvaldsen.net/celestia/temp/huyland.jpg
It can be seen to the right in the screenshot; i am trying to decide what to do with it...

-rthorvald

[t00fri]

Huygens:
Anyone know what they did with the parachute? Was it released before touchdown? If not, how did they avoid it falling over the probe?

Runar,

I am sure you know the ESA/NASA Huygens landing videos. That's all I know about what happens with the parachute...

The reason i??m asking is here: http://runar.thorvaldsen.net/celestia/temp/huyland.jpg
It can be seen to the right in the screenshot; i am trying to decide what to do with it...

-rthorvald

GREAT! ...Except that in the environment of the landing, the landscape was probably REALLY flat....

Bye Fridger

[rthorvald]

I am sure you know the ESA/NASA Huygens landing videos. That's all I know about what happens with the parachute...

The reason i??m asking here instead of searching the sources is that i am moving house these days, and some incompetent drone at my telecom company managed - in spite of clear instructions - to cut off my comm lines in the old house BEFORE activating them in the new house... So i am suffering three weeks on expensive, slooow dialup. It??s difficult to get at any data. So, if anyone has any info, it would be great.

Except that in the environment of the landing, the landscape was probably REALLY flat

I am aware of this... But the problem, as you discussed earlier over in the developer forum, is the "hole in the atmosphere" bug. I am building a river valley on a mountain a couple of kilometers up to circumvent it... Else the sky will look entirely black when seen from the model.

But it will look reasonably flat in most directions... The ridges are there to make it look natural. Everything also slopes gently down to zero altitude.

(I got Jestr??s permission to incorporate his Huygens in this).

-rthorvald

[TERRIER]

This probably isn't much help, but I found this at Science Daily;

"The probe's parachute disappeared from sight on landing, so the probe probably isn't pointing east, or we would have seen the parachute," said DISR team member Mike Bushroe.

[rthorvald]

"The probe's parachute disappeared from sight on landing, so the probe probably isn't pointing east, or we would have seen the parachute," said DISR team member Mike Bushroe.

Thanks! Nice pointer. I guess i can assume it just fell to ground somewhere behind the probe.

Still wonder why they would take the chance on not releasing it before impact, though... Or maybe they did, right before.

-rthorvald