LIGHTNING SUSCEPTIBILITY OF THE HUYGENS PROBE

To fulfil its mission to collect scientific data from Titan, ESA's Huy gens probe must descend through the Titan atmosphere, In doing so, it faces the possibility of being struck by lightning, particularly in th e lower regions of the atmosphere where clouds are known to exist, Pro tection against such a threat had to be built into the design, and the design later had to be tested, It proved to be the first time that a European spacecraft had to be tested for lightning susceptibility, The probe performed well in the testing: it was able to survive all stren gth of strikes aimed at it. This gives the project team the confidence to forge forward with the assembly of the flight model in preparation for the launch in October 1997.