Feature Article

Titan Calling In a collaboration with the European Space Agency, Cassini, in addition to its own suite of scientific instruments designed to scan Saturn and its moons, carries a hitchhiker—a lander probe called Huygens. A stubby cone 3 meters across, Huygens was built for a single purpose: to pierce the cloaking methane atmosphere of Titan and report its findings back to Cassini for relay to Earth.

So it was quite a shock when Boris Smeds, a graying, Swedish, 26-year ESA veteran [see photo, "Unsung Hero"], who normally specializes in solving problems related to the agency's network of ground stations, discovered in early 2000 that Cassini's receiver was in danger of scrambling Huygens's data beyond recognition.