WHEN Father Christmas drops off presents tomorrow morning, a Malvern man's thoughts will be billions of miles away.

Between 1.30am and 3.30am, space probe Cassini will launch the lander Huygens at Saturn's moon Titan.

A nervous wait then follows for news of a successful launch and then landing - Huygens has to travel through space for 20 days before landing on Titan.

Among those waiting for news is electrical engineer Vic Elliott, of Britten Drive, who supplied a special sensor for Huygens, through his company Clino Ltd.

Huygens' instruments include the Surface Science Package, developed by the University of Kent, which includes a device called a tiltmeter, supplied by Mr Elliott.

As the spacecraft parachutes through the atmosphere of Titan, the tiltmeter will measure its motion and whether it lands on a solid or liquid surface.

"It's very exciting to be involved with something like this," he said.

The spaceship was launchedin 1997. Before that Mr Elliott worked closely with the team at the University of Kent to develop the instrument package.

The mission is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency and Mr Elliott will be logging on to their websites to keep abreast of the news.

"It's definitely the furthest one of our sensors has been," he said. "It's travelled 3.5 billion miles to be there."

Huygens may only send back signals for a few minutes, but the results are set to enthral scientists, who think Titan's atmosphere resembles that of primitive Earth.

So does Mr Elliott expect the spacecraft will find signs of life?

"If there is, it will be primitive life, like lichens," he said.