ESA PR 54-2005. This has been a triumphant year for science at the European Space Agency. Almost one year has passed since ESA’s Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Today, a set of new wide-ranging results from the probe’s two-and-a-half hour descent and landing, part of the extraordinary NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons, is ready for release.

At the same time, ESA’s Mars Express mission is continuing its investigations of Mars, painting a new picture of the ‘red planet’. This includes the first ever probing below the surface of Mars, new geological clues with implications for the climate, newly-discovered surface and atmospheric features and, above all, traces of the presence of water on this world.

These and other exciting findings from just one year of observations and data analysis – in the context of ESA’s overall scientific achievements – will be the focus of a press conference to be held at ESA Headquarters in Paris at 16:00 on 30 November 2005.

Media interested in attending are invited to complete the following registration form.

Press conference programme

Space Science Highlights 2005
From (Cassini)-Huygens to Mars Express
30 November 2005, 16:00 hrs
Room 137, European Space Agency Headquarters
8-10 Rue Mario-Nikis,
F-75738 Paris Cedex, France

15:30 Registration
16:00 A Year of European Space Science Successes. Prof. David Southwood, ESA Director of Science Programme
16:10 Highlights of the Huygens Mission Results, Jean-Pierre Lebreton, ESA Huygens Mission Scientist
16:15 Robin Duttaray, Co-Investigator, Doppler Wind Experiment, University of Bonn, Germany
16:20 Marcello Fulchignoni , Principal Investigator, Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument
16:25 John Zarnecki, Surface Science Package, Open University, UK
16:30 François Raulin, Co-Investigator, Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer, Univ. de Paris 2 – Créteil
16:35 Guy Israel, Principal Investigator, Aerosol Collector and Pyrolyser, Service d’Aéronomie/CNRS
16:40 Bruno Bezard, Co-Investigator, Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer, Laboratoire d’études spatiales et d’instrumentation en astrophysique, Observatoire de Paris
16:45 Jonathan Lunine, Interdisciplinary Scientist, Titan surface-atmosphere interactions, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson (USA)
16:55 Questions and Answers
17:05 Coffee break
17:10 Mars Express: results in the overall context of Martian science, Agustín Chicarro, ESA Mars Express Project Scientist
17:15 Giovanni Picardi (or representative), MARSIS Principal Investigator, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy Jeffrey Plaut, MARSIS Co-Principal Investigator, NASA/JPL, USA
17:30 Jean-Pierre Bibring, OMEGA Principal Investigator, Institut d’Astrophysique spatiale, Orsay, FR
17:40 Gerhard Neukum, HRSC Principal Investigator, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
17:45 Questions and Answers
17:55 Interview opportunities

Please fax the attached form back to :

ESA Media Relations Division
Tel: +33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690